Socialite: Long season a risk
Whitney can’t host opening day lunch or be in city until Aug. 1
Count philanthropist Marylou Whitney among those who think an extended Saratoga racing meet is too much.
John Hendrickson, Whitney’s husband, said the 2019 season start on July 11 is too early for the couple to come to Saratoga. He also thinks the seven-week meet threatens to destroy the cachet of the track.
“They won’t have the quality of horses,” Hendrickson said Friday. “They have chosen quantity over quality ... There used to be a stake race every day. Now it’s only on weekends. I know a lot of horsemen who will only come on the weekends because it’s too long.”
Hence, he and Whitney won’t be hosting their traditional opening day luncheon for horsemen and local politicians and have no plans to arrive in Saratoga until Aug. 1 in time for the Whitney Stakes on
Aug. 3.
“We don’t have the time to spend two months here,” Hendrickson said. “It’s a beautiful place. I don’t want people to think that Marylou is abandoning Saratoga. Marylou has a lot of love for Saratoga ... she doesn’t want to hurt it. But we can’t be there that long. We have other obligations.”
Though the 2019 calendar, approved by the New York Racing Association board, extends to seven weeks, it keeps the race days stable at 40. NYRA accomplished that by adding another dark day, making for two, Monday and Tuesday, rather than the traditional one.
The dates, approved by the state’s Gaming Commission, will also affect the couple’s backstretch appreciation program. For 12 years, they hosted Sunday night dinners for the workers, as well as sent them on field trips throughout the region and sponsored bingo nights with popular prizes like televisions and bicycles. But this year, the program that runs six days a week won’t be running during the first two weeks of the meet.
“We don’t want to penalize the backstretch workers, but we just can’t do that much,” Hendrickson said. “It costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to do. There is just so much fundraising that can be done. We hope someone can pick up the month of July. No one else does this, but the reason we were able to was because the duration was shorter.”
NYRA said the longer meet was to accommodate construction at Belmont Park Race Track. But Hendrickson said there are questions about the timeline for renovations because of opposition from neighbors and delays in environmental permits. He worries the work won’t be done on schedule, forcing NYRA extend the season in Saratoga in 2020.
“I know this is temporary, but the board has been trying to do this for years,” said Hendrickson who has sat on the NYRA board and always opposed lengthening the season. “In my experience, it’s never been temporary. It wasn’t that long ago that Saratoga was the August place to be. It was 24 days. Then it was 28 days, then 30 days, then 36, then 40 and now 48 days. We are great for a reason. It’s less special, the more we have.”
Hendrickson acknowledges that many businesses see the benefits of the longer run. He doesn’t begrudge them the extra revenue they can likely expect. But, he said, people are not taking the long-view, which requires protecting the city’s economic engine.
Hendrickson also said he has been approached by many in the community who have thanked him for speaking out. Many city leaders, including Mayor Meg Kelly, echoed Hendrickson’s sentiment early on. But she retreated and was quoted in a NYRA press release touting the new schedule “will bring both anticipated and unanticipated benefits to our summer racing season, and we will use the city’s resources to make it even more successful than ever.”
Hendrickson said half of the farms in Kentucky that used to come for a four-week meet have slowly been retreating from Saratoga and will no longer come for the entire season.
In addition to the luncheon and events for the backstretch workers, Whitney was also known for her annual gala during the meet. The lavish parties were started in the 1960s when Whitney arrived in Saratoga Springs for the first time as the wife of Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, better known as Sonny.
Over the years, she developed elaborate themes for the private party in the Canfield Casino in Congress Park, where the public gathered to watch Whitney arrive in a horsedrawn carriage.
She and her celebrity guests threw souvenirs into the crowd — foam panda bears the year the theme was “A Night in Alaska,” when ice skaters performed on a board coated with silicone inside the casino; Chinese rattle drums the year it was “A Night in Hong Kong,” and toy horses in 2005, a year after Whitney’s horse, Birdstone, won the Belmont Stakes.
In 2006, Whitney canceled the party after she suffered a stroke. The last gala was held in 2010.
“It was time for the gala to transition into something more charitable,” Hendrickson said at the time.
Now his concern is that Saratoga will end up like Belmont, a track without an audience.
“Itusedtobeyou wouldn’t miss a day at the track ... with the longer duration, NYRA is diluting the meet to a point where it dangerous, he said. “We have an international reputation. We are the shining star. But Saratoga is getting less special. It takes a lifetime to build a reputation and a second to lose it.”