Smiles for Saratoga’s opener

Opening weekend at Saratoga brought many reasons to smile, not the least of which were two terrific stakes races in the Diana and the Coaching Club American Oaks. The blanket, competitive finish in the Diana contrasted with Songbird’s romp in the CCAO, each stirring the racing fan’s heart in its own way.

Pleasing, too, is the new escalator, not only because after two years, it seems to be working consistently, but because of the attention given to the new structure and its recognition of the history of Saratoga Race Course. The wood and copper enclosure is a big improvement on the candy-striped awning that used to stand there, and the molding on each side displays the logo of the Saratoga Association, founded in 1864 to run the track and dismantled in 1955 when the New York Racing Association was born.

To the left at the top of the carousel is a new eatery called Easy Goer, offering reserved and first-come, first-served setting, with a buffet or menu option. Gone there, too, is the red and white canopy that cast a lurid glow on customers, replaced with a new copper roof. New tables and televisions have been installed, in the style of the Fourstardave Sports Bar downstairs.

The new video screens are a vast improvement over those that they replaced, which were literally of another technological era. Now, those of us sitting out back can actually see what’s happening on the racetrack.

There are more free picnic tables in the backyard this year, and about 10 have been removed from the paid reservation section. As a result, there is more paddock rail space for customers than there was last year, a welcome sight given the encroachment on that space over the last few years.

The historic coach stepping stone, proclaimed by its plaque to date to 1864, the year that this racetrack opened, has been removed from its corner just outside The Post Bar, where it had been used it as a table for the last several years, customers heedless of its history. Now the stone sits outside the gates of the clubhouse entrance, not far from the ceremonial jockey statues and is a welcome sight.

Through Sunday, handle was up 4.6 percent, though wagering on-track was down on Friday and Saturday by a combined 10 percent. It’s not worth talking about attendance, as all season passes are included whether those people show up or not, and Sunday was a giveaway, which inflates that count. Gone are the days when we knew how many people actually came to the track, even though that number could easily be determined.

You didn’t need any technology to see that by the time the horses left the gate for the Coaching Club American Oaks at 6:18 p.m. on Sunday evening, there weren’t that many people left at the track. NYRA’s many and laudable TV commitments this summer no doubt determine at least some post times, and it’s a positive development that Songbird’s race was shown on a number of outlets outside this area, but it’s a shame that its scheduling meant that many customers had departed by the time she ran.

Also in the “good news/bad news” category is the new website for Saratoga, launched days before the meet. On Wednesday night, entries for races were

incomplete and difficult to find; for much of Friday’s opening days, no results were available on the site. The histories for Saratoga’s stakes races include winners up through only 2013, and while the main stakes page includes a column for the purses of this year’s races, that column blank. Those of us who regularly use the site for basic information about Saratoga’s races are forced to seek that information elsewhere, and while the launch of any new initiative, particularly a technological one, is going to have growing pains, it makes little sense that the new site is in fact driving NYRA’s customers to seek information elsewhere. It appears that the purpose of the site is not so much as to provide information about the racing product as it is to sell tickets, two outcomes that one would hope could coexist.

Two horses died during racing on Saturday, one was seriously injured during training that day, another died during training earlier in the month. It’s a small and statistically insignificant sample size; it’s also something that those responsible for equine safety should take note of.

While representatives of NYRA have been made widely available for individual media opportunities, completely gone are the press events of years past. NYRA decided to forego this year both the traditional June press conference in Saratoga and an open press event that took place opening week in 2013 and 2014. For the first time in recent memory, no one from the New York Racing Association appeared on the panel at the annual meet preview at the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame. Chris Kay was the featured speaker at a breakfast hosted by the Saratoga Chamber of Commerce last week, but that was not a NYRA event. Let’s hope that this trend doesn’t continue, and that the New York Racing Association returns to offering the sorts of availability to the press that it has in the past. This community welcomes NYRA and horse racing in a way that neither of its downstate counterparts do; that welcome should go both ways. ning her first eight career starts, the 3-yearold Medaglia d’Oro filly needed to quiet doubts that she was strictly a West Coast horse and had been beating up on less-than-stellar competition.

Songbird didn’t face an all-star field in the Oaks. Carina Mia is a really nice filly, though, and she made her unbeaten rival work as never before. That Songbird was able to meet the challenge and win by the significant margin she did (5 ¼ lengths) showed her to be every bit as good as her record indicated. Saratoga hopes to see her again in the Alabama on Aug. 20.

Planned next starts for other HOY hopefuls include: Beholder (Clement Hirsch Stakes at Del Mar, July 30); Tepin (Fourstardave Handicap at Saratoga, Aug. 13); and Catch a Glimpse (Lake Placid Stakes at Saratoga, Aug. 21).