One of my annual journeys is to go to Saratoga for a week's worth of attendance to take in thoroughbred racing at Saratoga Raceway. And as anyone who does this knows, the track is closed on Tuesday, the so-called 'Dark Day.' It's not the horses that need a rest from the six week meet, it's the people ho run the place. It's a welcome break anyway.
The off-day always results in a trip to Manchester Center in Vermont to do a little preliminary Christmas shopping and to always browse through the Northshire book store. On the last journey to the Mecca at the Finish Line I spotted a book in Northshire titled, 'All the Law in the World Won't Stop Them.' The cover carries a vintage photo of Saratoga policeman, carrying a night stick, wearing a helmet style cap, sporting a mustache, and casting a stern look at the proceedings on what looks like Broadway in Saratoga Springs. Be good, or else.
The book is by Greg Veitch, and turns out to be self-published through the Shires Press. Greg Veitch turns out to be a fifth-generation Saratogian who is the Chief of Police. Anyone who follows racing should recognize the name Veitch. There's a Mike Veitch who is a writer for the Daily Racing Form, and there's a John Veitch,who was a trainer for Calumet farm. Same Veitch family? Turns out yes.
An email query to Greg was answered and Mr. Veitch informed me:
As for my lineage. Yes, my father is Mike Veitch the turf writer. I am not sure if he writes for the Daily Racing Form specifically. I am sure he has, but he has written for many publications and I am frankly not aware of all of them.
John Veitch the former Calumet Farms trainer is my grandfather's cousin. John's father, Hall of Fame trainer Sylvester Veitch and my great-grandfather Sid Veitch were brothers. Sid was a jockey, sometimes, when he wasn't throwing races or punching other jockeys and getting suspended, or riding around in cars involved in mob murders! Their father was Silas Veitch who is up for consideration for the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame. I think I got that right...
It was the part in the introduction about Sid Veitch that hooked me into buying the book. Greg describes an incident where Sid is riding around in a car one night with a boatload of gangsters when one of them shoots one of the other guys and they dump him out at a hospital. The police question Sid, who tells the investigating officer, "I don't know who shot the poor fellow because I was in the front seat and the shooting took place in the back seat."
If that isn't a pure Jimmy Breslin response then nothing is.
Mr. Veitch provides a chronological narrative of the Saratoga Springs though 1921. There is a good deal of audacity in that village. Gambling at the track and casino-style gambling was always part of the town. And with it came the people who ran these gambling venues, gangsters from New York City, and other parts of the nation. Arnold Rothstein, the fixer of the 1919 World Series eventually finds his way to the town, and opens a resort-style venue, The Brook.. It turns out the house Mr. Rothstein was married in is still there, and Mr. Veitch gives us the address. The next dark day I might pay a visit.
The village goes through decades of constant expansion and contraction of openly allowing gambling, and also cracking down on it and raiding the joints. The pinnacle of audacity is when the gamblers gain access to their confiscated gambling tables that are being held at the jail, and make off with them. You gotta have the tables to go back into business.
An inside job? No kidding, and police officials, gamblers, and even the Saratoga County DA, Charles Andrus, are subjected to trials. Verdicts vary.
Saratoga is somewhat like a farm system for the mob. Mentioned is that Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano each worked roulette wheels and dealt cards in their climb to the top of the organizations. Everybody has got to be someplace.
Interesting to note is that the big venues did not allow non-Saratogians to gamble, and no women from anywhere allowed to place bets. Roulette tables were sometimes rigged with magnets underneath. The natural take was never enough.
Something I didn't know, was that one year when the village do-gooders really applied some clout, there was no racing at he track, and therefor no gambling at the track. The track has been opened since 1864, with very few interruptions.
The names and events are colorful, and certainly point to Saratoga being Las Vegas before Las Vegas. The wheeler-dealers that have floated through the boundaries created a rich history and probably a good precedent for those who followed. State Senator and Senate Majority leader Joseph Bruno from Saratoga County certainly could be pointed to following in the tradition of being tried for corruption, found guilty, and then later exonerated with an overturned conviction when the U.S. Supreme Court's definition of 'honest services' by a public official is worked into the fraud charges.
I've never been to Saratoga Springs in the fall, but I'm sure the old trees are as colorful as the past.
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