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## Sports

###### Essay

# At Saratoga, the People Are as Big a Draw as the Horses

Mario Tama/Getty Images

A race at Saratoga Race Course in July 2003.

<NYT_BYLINE >

###### By JOE DRAPE

</NYT_BYLINE>

###### Published: July 18, 2013

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I owe John (Old Smoke) Morrissey, as do any horseplayers or horse lovers worth their salt. He was an accomplished man: a gambler, casino owner, boxing champion and congressman. But 150 years ago, Old Smoke did something truly special when he held a race meeting in a little patch of horse heaven in upstate New York.

###### Multimedia

###### TIMELINE: 150 Years at Saratoga

######

Enlarge This Image

###### Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times

The exercise rider Xavier Aizpuru on the backstretch at Saratoga in August 2009.

Enlarge This Image

###### Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times

Saratoga Race Course in July 2007.

In the decades since, summer at Saratoga Race Course has meant hope and renewal and history and community for the simple souls who care deeply about fast horses. It is thought to be America’s oldest sports arena, after all, and we know its rhythms in our hearts. The voice of New York racing, Tom Durkin, won’t have to tell the crowd on Friday at the first race what to do.

“They’re off at Saratoga,” the crowd will roar as the horses break from the gate.

There have been countless bon mots written over the years about the allure of a town that once a year puts the old, beautiful, often flawed sport of thoroughbred racing front and center. Leave it to Red Smith to have captured its appeal perfectly 50 years ago when the Spa, as it’s known, celebrated its 100th anniversary.

How does one get to Saratoga Springs?

“From New York City you drive north for about 175 miles, turn left on Union Avenue and go back 100 years,” he wrote.

As this village of pastel Victorian houses swells with horseplayers over the next seven weeks, its history once more will be celebrated, and the charms of which Smith wrote will be as apparent as the thoroughbreds who stop traffic as they clip-clop across Union and the Daily Racing Forms strewn across virtually everyone’s breakfast tables.

Some things never change, like 2-year-old colts making their debuts spectacularly enough to ignite Kentucky Derby dreams for their owners and trainers. The evening yearling sales will always swirl glamour alongside big money as auctioneers take the measure of would-be owners’ fantasies with singsong cadences matched to ascending dollar amounts.

Some things are sweetly anticipated. In late August, the 144th running of the Travers Stakes is likely to bring the Derby (Orb), Preakness (Oxbow) and Belmont (Palace Malice) winners together in the aptly named Midsummer Derby, a race that has counted equine immortals like Man o’ War, Whirlaway and Native Dancer among its winners.

It is the personal histories horse people bring, however, that bind horse enthusiasts and transform Saratoga into an enchanting Brigadoon. I first visited Saratoga 25 years ago with my father, who grew up in the region and, as a boy, delivered tip sheets tavern to tavern along the Hudson. Each visit, I heard more stories about the characters he met on his route. I watched as he smiled wider and laughed easier from the memories.

So I wasn’t surprised that on our final trip together, he told me he was ready for his days on earth to be done. He said it without fear or drama. We were atop the press box watching a race, and out of nowhere he said that he had lived a good life, was proud how his children turned out and missed my mother.

Twelve days later, he died from complications post-surgery. I haven’t missed a summer since, and I have continued to meet warm, wonderful people who touched my life in indelible ways and have now gone on ahead of us.

Peter was the first innkeeper I met in town, and as the years unwound I learned far more than that: He was a real estate impresario, a talented craftsman and a thoughtful friend who wanted everyone in his orbit to enjoy his town. And we all did.

Barb was our first baby sitter, who my wife swore was the incarnation of Mary Poppins. Except Barb had a crew cut and a tattoo on her ankle, and delivered practical advice with a wonderful upstate squawk. My son loved her. She was a Saratoga native and a retired Skidmore employee who found a second career as, well, a Mary Poppins to children entranced by her toy box filled with treasures from the Dollar Store and a hug that completely enveloped them in love.

One of Barb’s favorite pastimes was having a picnic at dusk at Saratoga National Historic Park on the battlefield where in 1777 America met and defeated the British Army. She liked counting the scores of deer that came out of the surrounding forest.

It is a tradition we continue.

See, Saratoga is a lot more than a horse town. That may be what first brought me and countless others here over the past 150 years, but it isn’t what has kept generations coming back. It is the people who have done that. It may seem a timeless place, but memories are made and traditions are handed down as time marches on.

The odds are very long that I’ll be around to celebrate the next milestone anniversary of Saratoga Race Course. But I’d take a short price my son treks upstate with his own family to say happy 200th.

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###### A version of this article appeared in print on July 19, 2013, on page B 11 of the New York edition with the headline: At Saratoga, the People Are as Big a Draw as the Horses.

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