Howard Hamilton - Horse Sense ANOTHER GLORIOUS season at Saratoga ended recently. The period July 31 to September 1 highlights racing at its finest as the New York Racing Association (NYRA) stages the most spectacular promotion of horse racing one could expect anywhere in the world.
This is my 10th year at this meet and I never fail to marvel at a promotion which puts together some of the best horses in the world with the best jockeys available.
The Saratoga Race Meet is as close to God's heaven as one can get in the horse racing game. An annual rite of summer since 1863, Saratoga Race Course has long been "the summer place to be" for people of all walks of life.
WORLD-CLASS RACING
The Spa, as it is affectionately known, lies in wait with the unspoilt splendour of a country fair one that combines celebrity, fashion and high society with world-class racing.
For six weeks each year this picturesque Victorian community becomes an oasis for some of finest thoroughbreds in the world, accompanied by the men and women who own, breed, train, ride and just simply love them.
From its early days in the mid 19th century through today, Saratoga has been an icon in the world of thoroughbred racing, widely recognised as one of the top venues in all sports.
Saratoga is so many things to so many people. It is high society defined by the traditional Whitney Ball and "tradition-in-the-making" Travers Celebra-tion.
BREAKFAST AT THE TRACK
It is fashion spearheaded by a popular millinery contest, part of the annual 'Hats off to Saratoga' opening weekend. It is fine cuisine featuring the ever popular Breakfast at the Track, accompanied by the early morning workouts of the world's finest thoroughbreds.
It is community and family-oriented, led by the Travers Festival, comprised of more than 40 fun-filled charitable events and it is exhilarating athleticism culminating in the 134th running of the $1 million Travers Stakes, also known as the Mid-summer Derby.
Saratoga is indeed very special. One doesn't travel all that distance every year for the past 10 years if there was not something special about this Mecca of racing.
This year's meet was particularly challenging since NYRA had recently been the victim of a most scathing report from the Attorney General of New York.
A number of employees had been convicted of fraud and money laundering and the management of NYRA was under some serious pressure. All this was coupled with the most adverse weather conditions, which saw numerous rain and thunderstorms in the earlier half of the meet and a heat wave in mid August which was most unbearable.
BLACKOUT
Nature's non-cooperation was capped by that now-infamous blackout on 14th August, which caused the cancellation of race meets in Toronto and delays in the start of some of the race meets at Saratoga.
With all of these adversities, NYRA, to its credit, managed and produced the most successful Saratoga Race Meet ever. Attendance was up, handle at the racetrack was up, purses were increased, nominations and horses competing were up and the racing fans were indeed a very satisfied group.
We saw more records broken at this race meet than ever before. Trainer Todd Pletcher erased the previous most winners record held by John Veitch and ended the race meet with over 30 winners.
Jockey Johnny Velasquez was even more outstanding in erasing the 55 winners previously held by Jerry Bailey. At last count when I left there on Sunday (August 31) he had gone over 60 winners, a phenomenal feat when one considers that the meet is only 36 racing days.
Jerry Bailey, easily the best jockey in the world, had to be content with second place, with his best performance for me being aboard the Ralph Zaidie-trained Silver Meadow in the top two-year-old stakes race - the hopeful.
The crowning event of the meet - The Travers - run on Saturday, August 23, provided the usual hype, with the press having a field day pitting Funny Cide - the Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner against Empire Maker - the Belmont winner and Triple Crown spoiler.
Both trainers, Barclay Tagg and Bobby Frankel, kept fans confused with their "in-today, out-tomorrow" guessing game. As it turned out, and as I predicted, none of these two horses started.
RACE HISTORY
Ten Most Wanted, the most genuine 10-furlong horse in the Travers, spread-eagled the competition after taking advantage of the second fastest pace in race history.
Peace Rules, the eventual Bobby Frankel entry and Strong Hope, the Jim Dandy winner from the Todd Pletcher/Johnny Velasquez winning combination, set the most blistering pace I have ever seen, running the first six furlongs in 1:09:03.
Peace Rules eventually got rid of Strong Hope and set sail for home with Jerry Bailey looking all over a winner until Ten Most Wanted, under the patient ride of Pat Day, came storming home to win by some four lengths.
Despite the absence of Funny Cide and Empire Maker, Saratoga set Travers Day records for both attendance and handle. The crowd of 66,122 easily surpassed the previous Travers mark of 60,486 in 2001 when Point Given won.
The on-track handle on the 12-race card was $9,390,034, which surpassed the 2001 mark of $8,642,160, when there were 11 races. The total handle of $39,489,786 broke the old handle mark of $34,529,273, also set in 2001.
All-sources handle was a Saratoga record of $40,907,482. One can't help but report the oft-repeated advertisement of NYRA that some $72 million has been returned to punters since they reduced the take out to 14 percent in July 2001.
Once again NYRA and Saratoga have provided a useful case study in successful racing promotion. Such lessons which should not be lost on local promoters.
Howard L. Hamilton is President of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association and may be contacted at howham@cwjamaica.com.
