I plagiarized this from myself. I’ve done previous Saratoga previews and I just liked the historical background aspect. Part 2 will look at trainers and jockeys. Part 3 will look at the intangibles.

Heaven is not in Iowa. No baseball fans, paradise is located on 350 tree-lined acres in the middle of the Adirondacks just off Union Avenue in the historic town of Saratoga Springs, New York.

On September 19, 1777 the first battle of Saratoga was fought at Freeman’s Farm. The American army led by Horatio Gates, but inspired by the mercurial Benedict Arnold severely dented the British troops of John Burgoyne on that day. A weakened and increasingly desperate Burgoyne regrouped and made a last ditch attack on October 7 at Bemis Heights, but his British regulars were soundly thrashed by the Americans. Short on supplies and suffering increasing desertions, Burgoyne retreated to Saratoga, finally surrendering on October 17 and changing the entire course of the war in the process, not to mention the history of racing. I shudder to think what might have happened had the revolutionary forces not held Saratoga.

225 years later, from July 18 to September 1, a whole different set of Saratoga battles will be fought, not on the rolling fields that separated the endless expanse of deciduous forests, but on a mile and one eighth oval of dirt and two courses of lush turf. Centuries of carefully mapped out breeding come together in a symphony of thundering blood horses and screaming fanatics that is the acme of race meets. I defy you to go to Saratoga and not emerge forever imprinted by the experience.

Saratoga Springs, like it or not, is defined by the track that seemingly dominates all human activity for six weeks in the late summer. It is the place where everything can be won or lost in the flash of a photographic instant. Trainers come to unseat the princes of the sport. Older horses look to solidify their reputations. And the owners of two year olds exude an optimism that can only come from believing the next Secretariat or Cigar or even Palace Malice is in their stable.

Saratoga is the prettiest and quaintest and best track in the country, without question or equivocation. Where else do you start your day by parking on the front lawn of an old Victorian house or under an old tree in the main grassy parking lot? Where else can you have breakfast while watching the greatest horses in the world finish their morning works to the expert commentary of the eminent horsewoman Mary Ryan? Where else do you look to be one of the early birds rushing to secure a free picnic table under some majestic tree? (That’s right all you tracks that loudly proclaim, no outside food or drink allowed. A real picnic with your own picnic food.) Where else can you hang out in a clubhouse filled with everyone from cinema royalty to real royalty to women in gaudy hats and bangles to match, to some guy chomping on a cigar he’s no longer allowed to light wearing clothes that Goodwill might reject? Where else do they allow jockeys to run a gantlet of irritated and elated bettors after a race? Where else do you have a horse of the year candidate pass within arm’s length of you on the way to be saddled? What other track contributed to the lexicon of American sports by changing once and for all the meaning of the word “upset?” (The great Man o’ War lost only once in his career in the Sanford Stakes on August 13, 1920 to a 100-1 horse that may have been totally forgotten had he not been named Upset. Man o’ War, one of the two contenders for Horse of the Century, was “upset” that day, and left the world with the definitive description of a beaten favorite.) Best of all, where else can you drag some racetrack neophyte over to the Big Red Spring, swearing it will be the experience of a lifetime, only to break out in laughter at the grimace that immediately follows the first drop of the vile stuff intersecting a taste bud?

I’ll tell you where. Nowhere but Saratoga. Win or lose, a day at Saratoga beats a day anywhere else.