Let's Eat

Saratoga is many thing to many people. Aside from the obvious appeal of going to the races and making a wager, it has the appeal of going to the races and eating. To some, the place is one huge outdoor restaurant and takeout place.

The recent week I spent at Saratoga from my vantage point on the outer rim of the Fourstardave seating area gave me an unobstructed view of just how ravenous the patrons are at Saratoga. The NYC Mac N' Cheese truck parked just opposite where I sat nearly always had a line for their $10 bounty of macaroni and cheese served up in a takeout container. The only time there wasn't a line was on the Thursday we suffered through a day-long downpour and the Mac N' Cheese truck closed down and the workers went home early. Rain tends to curb appetites.

The boast of NYC macaroni and cheese has left me a wondering a bit as to when did NYC become famous for Mac n' Cheese? Cheesecake, yes, Nathan's hot dogs, yes, but not macaroni and cheese. And the food truck. I'm not in the city like I used to be, so I don't know if after Saratoga the truck picks out a spot in Manhattan and serves up their goodies to a lunch crowd. But after their take from Saratoga, the truck might just be parked in a garage for the remainder of the year.

Then there's Hattie's chicken, the famous fried chicken that not that long along started being offered at a chicken shack just outside the Fourstardave. The line for Hattie's often looks like a line at the DMV or the unemployment office. It stretches well back that when you want to make a bet you have to pierce through the line. How many pounds of chicken they must need to keep the place going is beyond me. A Travers Day crowd had to deplete whatever they brought in.

Which got me to thinking. As horses are brought to the stables in vans, the food must be brought in huge refrigerator trucks well before the hungry descend. I have no idea what the lines looked like at The Shake Shack for burgers and fries, but I can imagine.

Horse of course eat as well. And on rare occasions, they try and eat each other. This is known as "savaging," when a horse tries to bite another horse, niggles at their neck and head. It is not a playful nudge, it is a full scale Dracula attack, something like Mike Tyson going for Evander Holyfield's ear. 

It happened in yesterday's Forego Stakes race when Youpon on the rail, was set upon by Firenze Fire who went for Youpon's head in a BIG way, even nearly pulling Youpon's bridle off. Jose Ortiz on Firenze Fire had to stand up in the stirrups and yank Firenze Fire away just as they were inside the sixteenth pole. Firenze Fire was on fire, and might have won if his attention wasn't directed at Youpon's anatomy. Youpon prevailed, despite the attack, an won by a head.

The DRF chart caller immortalized the stretch duel in the chart:

"...Firenze Fire...began to savage that foe [Youpon] badly coming to the sixteenth-pole, continued to savage that opponent while the rider attempted to reach up and pull him off using the right rein, lost momentum in the process, had the jockey's hand slip off the rein multiple times while trying to gather it up, was finally able to grab the rein about forty years from the wire while bumping at that juncture and just missed."

Barbara Livingston, the peerless DRF photographer, of course caught the action in the above photo, just as she caught Firenze Fire being savaged in 2018 by Whereshetoldmetogo, a photo that won Barbara an Eclipse award. In that race, the Gallant Bob Stakes at Parx, Firenze fire prevailed and won.

After yesterday's Forego Stakes there was animated conversation as to what would have happened had Firenze Fire gone on to finish first even after savaging Youpon. The consensus went to "I don't know," to believing that Firenze Fire would be disqualified from first place. A moot point, but still interesting.

I'm amazed the NYT now allowed Joe Drape to now write two pieces from Saratoga. The first, 'Postcard from Saratoga,' was a friendly piece about the resilience of the area's patrons to keep coming back and diving forward for those coveted picnic tables as soon as the gates open at 7 A.M., despite the first race not going off till 1:00 P.M.  

The second piece, appearing in Saturday's paper was a more sober piece about the fate of racing for the next 100 years given the numerous doping scandals and actions of bad players, notably Bob Baffert, impinging on the integrity of the sport and how the fans see it.

"It is easy to come here each summer and believe all is right in the Sport of Kings.
Until reality intrudes."

Joe of course is right, recounting the massive number of indictments now headed for court that ensnared trainers Jorge Navarro, Jason Servis and many others. And then of course there's the cases involving Bob Baffert, whose horses have tested positive for a variety of substances transmitted through ointment and even hay. The official outcome of Baffert's Medina Spirit winning this year's Kentucky Derby, or getting disqualified for a banned substance is still pending.

In yesterday's Ballerina Stakes, a $500,00 Grade I handicap race for fillies and mares three-years-old fillies and mares up going 7 furlongs, Baffert had the overwhelming favorite entered, Gamine. Despite Baffert recently winning a stay of NYRA's ban on his presence, Baffert himself didn't make the trip from the West Coast, instead having his top assistant Jimmy Barnes saddle Gamine.

The broadcasters' conversation on Gamine was her record, and the fact she was running with an aluminum pad, but not her disqualification from third in the 2020 Kentucky Oaks having tested positive for a banned substance. She has a tainted past due to Bob Baffert.

Joe of course feels the poetry of Saratoga..."Church is in session each morning at the Oklahoma training track, where the faithful work their binoculars like rosary beads as a drumbeat of hooves drift to the heavens,"...will be threatened by doping if it is not forcefully addressed.

Certainly, but my take on Saratoga is it will survive anything as long as there is enough food to feed the patrons.

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