Saratoga tough on wallet, but worth trip

Saturday, August 27, 2005

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. -- Two rows in front of me a 12-year-old boy screamed and jumped for joy.

"I won! I won!" he shrieked to his parents and grandparents who were relaxing under the shade of the grandstand. The young handicapper had just doped out the winner of the first race Monday at Saratoga Race Course, and it was a shrewd bet.

The triumphant horse, No Way No How, with jockey John Velazquez in the irons, blew past tiring favorite LC Tiffany in the stretch of the 1 1/8-mile allowance race and paid a generous $16 on a $2 bet. I had selected LC Tiffany and had placed a good percentage of my bankroll on the front-running speedster, who seemed to me the lock of the day on this card.

"No wonder they call it the graveyard of favorites," I said to myself as I tore up several worthless betting slips. It was my Saratoga debut, and it would be the beginning of a long and unprofitable afternoon.

Every summer for as long as I can remember, I've wanted to visit the track known as "the Spa." But something always came up to deter me: The house needed painting. The car needed fixing. A friend wanted to go golfing. It was too hot. The wife already had plans. No money.

Last weekend, I decided on the spur of the moment that I wouldn't let another summer pass without a trip to the famous racetrack at the foot of the Adirondack mountains in upstate New York. A friend bailed out on me at the last minute and it was raining heavily early Sunday morning, but I refused to let those minor obstacles alter my plans. I would go solo.

I packed a change of clothes, gassed up the car, hit the ATM machine and headed West, leaving Hallowell at about 11 a.m. On the way over, I opted to take the scenic route through New Hampshire and Vermont which added at least an hour to the trip.

Six hours later I was in Bennington, Vt., 40 miles east of my destination. I spent the night in Vermont, near the New York border, to avoid paying the high lodging prices Saratoga is infamous for during the race meet. Bennington is your typical picturesque, quiet little New England town. It was the site of a key Revolutionary War battle, and it proved to be the perfect place to study Monday's race card and plan my wagering strategy. I pored over the Daily Racing Form past performances in my room at the Fife and Drum motel and found several good betting opportunities. They turned out to be good only on paper.

I arrived in Saratoga at about 10 a.m. Monday. The track was easy to find and there was plenty of free parking. It was raining so I stopped at the National Racing Museum and Hall of Fame which is across the street from the race track. The museum is an interesting place with plenty of racing exhibits and a huge Hall of Fame with hundreds of plaques honoring various race horses, trainers and jockeys. I took a quick tour and watched a few of Secretariat's races on the museum's video library. This whetted my appetite for some live racing, so I headed across the street and bought my ticket to enter North America's oldest racing facility.

Like most major tracks, Saratoga, with its trademark five pyramid-like dormers thrusting up out of the grandstand roof, is simply massive. It accommodates over 50,000 spectators and has a 1 1/8-mile dirt track, two inner turf courses of a mile and 7/8 of a mile, along with a huge paddock out behind the main buildings. You could fit about three Scarborough Downs inside Saratoga and probably have room to squeeze in the Skowhegan and Windsor Fairs, too.

Why go all this way for a horse race when I could hit the OTB in Waterville, or the fair circuit? Well, the town of Saratoga Springs is probably worth a trip with its beautiful Victorian architecture, performing art center, spas, restaurants and raucous nightlife, but the six-week long race meeting is what draws most visitors.

Horsemen from all over the U.S. point their best thoroughbred stock to Saratoga and its lucrative purse structure. This leads to good competitive fields, giving bettors some of the best racing of the year to wager on.

Although I didn't enjoy much success at the betting windows, the racing facility is one of the best I've been to.

While some sports fans love to take pilgrimages to ballparks and football stadiums, we horseplayers enjoy visiting different tracks. If we win a few bucks to help with trip expenses, all the better.

I've been to Del Mar, Hollywood Park and Santa Anita in Southern California; Kentucky's famous Churchill Downs and Gulfstream in Florida, along with the smaller New England venues like Suffolk and Rockingham. I would rate Saratoga as my second favorite after Del Mar, the track in San Diego built by Bing Crosby.

Monday's race card at Saratoga wasn't anything great. It was dominated by a lot of inscrutable maiden races on the turf for New York-bred 2-year-olds, horsedom's wobbly teenagers.

There was one stakes race -- the Union Avenue, but no big-name horses were entered. That comes today at the $1 million Travers Stakes.

Monday was a day of long shots that had a lot of the bettors grumbling and scratching their heads. There was a $71 winner, two $35 winners and one $25 winner. I landed on one of the $35 winners -- Royal Sanction in the fifth race. I also hit a small trifecta for $32, but losing the first race had put a large dent in both my bankroll and my confidence, so I became more conservative.

I ended the outing $80 in the hole and had enough cash for the long drive home. The losses were enough to sting a little, but not enough to bankrupt me.

I departed with a renewed love of horse racing and an understanding of why Saratoga's allure is difficult to resist for the horseplayer.

Ben Sturtevant -- 621-5636

bsturtevant@centralmaine.com