‘Toga party brings out best in racing
If for no other reason than being mentioned in a Carly Simon song, Saratoga stands out as an American landmark.
In the year of Secretariat, 1973, “You’re So Vain” topped the Billboard Hot 100 Singles charts. Listeners speculated if the singer referenced Warren Beatty, Mick Jagger (on backup vocals) or real-life husband James Taylor as the male suitor who “probably thinks this song is about you.” In his spare time, Simon’s siren “went up to Saratoga and your horse naturally won” before “you flew your Lear Jet up to Nova Scotia for the total eclipse of the sun.”
Don’t know if Carly was a racing fan but then and now, Saratoga is a place to see and be seen. Before the New York Racing Association lengthened the schedule into parts of three months, it was known as “the August place to be.”
Now, the season lasts from mid-July (the 2022 meeting started Thursday, one place they still race on Monday) to Labor Day in early September. The season allows New York racing fans to leave Gotham at the hottest time of year and head upstate for six weeks or so of racing pleasure and assorted amenities, the weather hopefully having cooled before they return home for what Belmont Park calls its “fall championship meet.”
A handicapping tip here: Just because a horse thrives at Saratoga doesn’t mean it will do quite so well at Belmont. As a rule, the Saratoga surface is much harder than that at Belmont, which local horsemen call “Big Sandy” because of its composition to absorb frequently heavy rainfall. In 2007, two Arkansas Derby winners went head-to-head at both tracks with Lawyer Ron faring better at Saratoga and 3-yearold Curlin evening the scales on Long Island. Both won championships in 2007 with Curlin named Horse of the Year after taking the Breeders’ Cup Classic in the slop at New Jersey’s Monmouth Park.
Saratoga is known as the “Graveyard of Favorites,” when a better comparison would encompass champions. Man o’War, to Upset, the latter horse’s name thus entering the sport’s lexicon, suffered his only career debut there. They named a major 3-year-old stake after Jim Dandy, Travers upsetter of 1930 Triple Crown champion Gallant Fox.
And no story about Saratoga would be complete without mentioning two other Triple Crown winners. Secretariat, perhaps rushed into duty before going to stud after his 3-year-old season, lost the 1973 Whitney Handicap to Onion (by Third Martini), one of two Allen Jerkens trainees (Prove Out) to beat Big Red. Secretariat suffered a second loss at Saratoga as a
2-year-old when disqualified in the 1972 Hopeful but earlier won the Sanford over the track in his first of two Horse-of-the-Year campaigns. Last week marked the 50th anniversary of his first career triumph.
American Pharoah, the first Triple Crown winner in 37 years, lost his only Saratoga start when second in the 2015 Travers. Keen Ice, trained by Dale Romans, won the race after American Pharoah and Frosted went at it early. It was American Pharoah’s only defeat at 3 and last of his career, victories including the Arkansas Derby and Rebel at Oaklawn. Keen Ice scored a victory at stud this year when son Rich Strike won the Kentucky Derby in a roof-lifting upset. American Pharoah, himself prolific at stud, especially with turf horses, was trained by Bob Baffert, a name not heard much these days.
Baffert, who had a second Triple Crown winner (Justify) in 2018, also trained the only horse to break two minutes over a mile and a quarter at Saratoga — Secretariat-like stuff — in the 2016
Travers with Arrogate.
No telling who wins the 2022 Travers, the track’s premier race, but there’s a good chance that horses trained by Chad Brown, Brad Cox and Todd Pletcher will be mentioned. Brown, a New York native (Mechanicsville, outside Saratoga Springs) and former Bobby Frankel trainee, is a good bet to win the trainers’ title or come close; his four victories Saturday included the Grade 1 Diana on turf. One of the Ortiz brothers, Irad or Jose, may top the jockey standings.
Saratoga, as written here after a 2017 personal inspection, should be on the bucket list of every racing fan. Not even sighting the twin spires at Churchill Downs moved me like driving up Union Avenue for the first time on Jim Dandy day at the Spa, truly the August place to be even if I visited in July. Racing, like it used to be and ought to be everywhere.
As Carly Simon said in another of her songs, “Let’s close now.”