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NYRA stacked the top half of Monday's card with two overnight stakes and a maiden special weights sprint for promising 2-year-olds.  This is the way racetracks play it in Europe.  They don't wait until the end to give fans something to cheer about. Still, in this case, the move-up in the schedule of quality was done to accommodate the ...

Season ticket holders in Section J of the Clubhouse are passing around a cartoon that places Dottie the Sticker Nazi on a par with Vito the parking lot attendant and Duncan the maître d' at the forefront of Saratoga lore.  The former white cap passed away during the off-season.   ''I'm going to miss her,'' said one fan, another ...

Man does not live on food alone. Souls become nourished in Saratoga by meeting its people, by being near the Thoroughbreds and by walking the grounds and the city.  Still nobody picks winners on an empty stomach. There are four unofficial, fan-sanctioned breakfasts.  Here they are in terms of ascending fulfillment: The first requires a ...

Veteran racegoers sensed a lack of excitement in the air as Saratoga opened its doors for the start of its 141st season.  It may have been the high humidity and subsequent rain or the realization that better racing was ahead on the weekend that dragged people down.  But the July and September days of the meet are never as ...

Few have made mention that trainer Bill Mott’s birthday is Opening Day at the Spa Course. This helpful bit of handicapping knowledge comes to you with no strings attached. Last summer was a rare Saratoga in which Mott didn’t saddle a winner on his birthday. This year, with Come From Behind in the fifth and Antenna in the seventh, as well as Auteur ...

The long held practice of keeping track of the date in flowers at the head of Union Avenue each morning was abandoned by the city of Saratoga Springs in what must have been a cost-cutting measure.  The result of this action is that no longer can one enjoy the dreamy satisfaction of knowing it’s a new day by walking past the garden toward ...

It was bruited on the backstretch this morning that the “real Colonel” was coming.  A few Winstar Farm folks and trainer Eoin Harty were waiting for Colonel John the horse to return from his leg-stretcher-outer when the news leaked.  The Travers-intended colt seemed to be enjoying the cool of the morning.  Thursday dawned briskly ...

Saratoga Racecourse isn’t the site of the world’s best Thoroughbred racing anymore – in fact, it’s far from it.  Today marked the beginning of a four-day Travers Stakes push and five races, the conditions of which enabled claiming horses with price tags of $35,000 or less to run, were on the program.  Thursday and Friday will offer the ...

For some unknown reason, the racecourse vendors stop selling Daily Racing Forms early on Mondays.  Patrons leaving the racetrack after the fifth race are unable to buy a Form for Wednesday. It can be frustrating.  On the other hand, it can be a blessing.Maybe, when a race meet runs 36 days, getting a break from the horses is a good ...

Racetrack representatives are passing out rainbow-arced lapel pins to people who register in NYRA Nation, the new data-based marketing initiative aimed to co-op fans in the struggle to make horse racing in New York relevant.  But the pins are as useless to a racetracker without a lapel as a stadium cushion without an imprint of “Saratoga” is ...