BACK TO THE TRACK
Oklahoma Training Track opens for spring training ahead of start of Saratoga Race season
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y.>> Monday morning marked the beginning of on-site training for the upcoming 2017 Saratoga Racing Meet.
The historic Oklahoma Training Track opened for its first day of spring training on Monday, about three months before the start of the Saratoga Race Course’s bustling 40-day meet.
Though only a few horses were making laps around the Oklahoma Training Track on Monday morning, those present were once again enjoying the sights, sounds and smells of being at the track.
“Before the big rush starts,” said Natalie Rutigliano, who has been an outrider for the New York Racing Association since 2007. She likes the “nice quietness” of the first few days of training in Saratoga Springs.
Prior to spring training in the Spa City, Rutigliano was at Belmont Park, another thoroughbred horse-racing facility just outside of New York City. The Queens native is happy to be back upstate, where she’s lived since 2005. “It’s home for me,” she said.
Many other New York Rac-
ing Association employees, as well as horses and trainers, feel the same.
The first thoroughbreds arrived to their temporary residence at Saratoga Race Course on Saturday. On Monday, there were about 25 horses on site.
Rutigliano said that many horses typically arrive in town during the first week in May.
By July, when the annual summer meet is underway, a couple thousand horses will be at the Saratoga Race Course staying in barns both on and off site.
Anyone who wishes to see the horses train before
the official start of racing season can visit the Whitney Viewing Stand, which overlooks the Oklahoma Training Track and offers the public the opportunity to view the morning workouts and training rituals from a unique vantage point. Starting this week, the viewing stand is open to the public on Saturdays and Sundays from 6 to 10:30 a.m. The public can access the stand from the East Avenue gate of the Oklahoma Training Track, where free parking is available.
The Whitney Viewing Stand first opened in 2013 in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the first organized four-day race meeting in Saratoga Springs, which took place in 1863 near the site of the Oklahoma Training Track.
Once this year’s meet has begun, the Whitney Viewing Stand will be open daily.
The 2017 Saratoga Race Course meet will begin on Friday, July 21 and lasts six weeks, through Labor Day, Monday, Sept. 4.
More information about the 2017 season at Saratoga Race Course can be found at www.NYRA. com/Saratoga.