Now here we were in 1959, only 12 days after the reopening of Aqueduct, and the new track was already showcasing the event everyone was calling "The Race of the Decade."...
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I have never taken a puff of a cigar, but the smell is intoxicating, bringing me back to my childhood and Ebbetts Fields and my Uncle Sam's cigars, and then later Yankee Stadium and then the old Madison Square Garden on 50th Street. Those were the special places of my youth where the smell of cigar smoke blended so perfectly with the smell of beer and mustard. Soon those three aromas would come together in the grandstand of Aqueduct Racetrack, which was only eight years old when I first inhabited it in 1967....
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When Forego won his four straight Woodwards, each was a competitive affair and an important race in deciding the championships....
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There was no doubt that A.P. Indy would be a heavy favorite in the Belmont Stakes. Everything was falling into place. All that was left was for the colt to have his all-important major work. Unfortunately. the night before the work it poured at Belmont, turning the track into a quagmire....
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This was a time of filled grandstands and of sound and healthy horses, most of whom were coming off much-needed vacations of their own....
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"Horseplayers," mainly Team Rotondo (Peter Rotondo Sr. and Jr. and Lew Davis), brings me back to a time long ago in my life; a time of smoke-filled busses and a cacophony of thick Brooklyn accents moaning about the double they almost hit and how "da faw hawse is a lock in da toid." OK, that was a bit exaggerated, but effective nonetheless....
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