NYRA is in the process of making some infrastructure chances at the place, and not all sections are accessible when you go out for a routine day of racing. The 3rd and 4th floors are closed off, and there are scant places to get something to eat or drink. Hopefully, they set up some temporary things to accommodate Saturday's "crowd." There might even be some people from that crowd of first-timers that will come back. Maybe.
My friends and I did after our first Belmont in 1968. I went out there for my first time at the races with the two Piermont brothers and their father's barber, James Kelly, who has to have been the rarity of Irish barbers.
Kelly showed us the ropes. Clubhouse. You needed a jacket to be there. Once upon a time there was a dress code at the races. Now, only in the Trustees Room.
Amazingly, it was $5 then to get into the Clubhouse, and it still is $5 to get into Belmont, any section during any non-Belmont Stakes day.
Through Kelly we were later acquainted with his friend Les, our handicapping mentor. We called him "Mr. Pace." He was ahead of Andy Beyer's and trip handicapping. We even rode with Les to Liberty Bell to take in winter racing when there was none in New York.
The last Belmont I attended was in 1999, when Lemon Drop Kid took the classic. I was there with Johnny M., Fourstardave and Jose B. I had gotten us four reserved seats, because by then NYRA was just about auctioning off the place for seating. No more racing in when the doors opened and staking out a seat secured with pages from the Morning Telegraph and the masking tape I kept spooled on a short pencil. (I still have the pencil, with very dried out masking tape still attached.)
At some point NYRA figured they had an event that could be called a "Festival." In 2003 I went out to the track on the Friday before the Belmont expecting to find a seat. Attendance was sparse then, and there was no need for a reserved seat. Until there was.
NYRA had coupled Belmont seating with the requirement to also buy a ticket for Friday's card. There was no one there on Friday. Everyone was eating their Friday ticket. I threw a fit when I was turned away from all the empty seats. More ushers than patrons to seat.
My protest got so loud I was sent to customer service where they gave me a reserved seat. I was boiling. Ever since then NYRA has been careful to state that admission doesn't guarantee seating. They can be such sweethearts.
Ever since 1999 we've never gone back for Belmont Day, after years of consecutive attendance. Trying to leave the track that day took us an hour to get out of the parking lot because NYRA provided no traffic control. Their ability to accommodate patrons has always been questionable, and of course came to the fore when NYRA and the LIRR forgot to provide trains for the exiting patrons who just saw American Pharoah win the Triple Crown.
As my friends and I got older and had a little more jingle in our jeans, we used to opt for the dinning room, a buffet that wasn't cost prohibitive and allowed us prime "on the glass" seating. We felt like owners or trainers.
This didn't last long, because once Aqueduct was part of the casino, the food for the dinning area came from the casino, and came at an exorbitant price, usually $65 per person, plus a seat charge, plus tax, plus tip for whatever drinks you ordered and had brought to the table.
The price knocked us out, and even when Belmont reinstated their dining room they they've hung onto a $65 price tab for a multi-course buffet in what they're calling the Belmont Room, but is really the old Trustees Room. And anyone who knows anything knows anything about the Trustees Room knows this is hardly a great place to watch a race from.
There once seemed to be plans to build better upscale, affordable dining with a sports bar atmosphere, but the efforts must have stalled. I was once invited to come to the track to comment on the plans. NYRA has consistently not built a sports bar/dining atmosphere at its downstate tracks. Saratoga yes; Aqueduct and Belmont no.
I always feel a little nostalgic when Belmont Day rolls around. I'll never have any intention of going because of past experiences, but I always wish I was there. Or could be, comfortably.
Fourstardave passed away in 2021 at a very early age of 71 due to health issues he couldn't seem to control, or choose to. From that initial day in 1968 he proved to be the one who basically took to racing like a duck to water. He worked for racing publications run by the Bomze family. He would get high on a horse days before the race. I'll never forget the call at work during the week before the 1993 Belmont when he told me Colonial Affair was the horse. He also loved Lemon Drop Kid in 1999 and made it pay handsomely for him.
In fact, the second place finisher, Nest, a filly, trained by Todd Pletcher as well and ridden by Irad's brother Jose, acquitted themselves nicely. And who solely owns Nest? Repole Stable, with Nest and Mo Donegal sharing a common breeder Ashview Farm & Colts Neck Stable (KY). It's a racing version of All in the Family.
Mike Repole, or "Mike from Queens" as the NBC broadcaster Mike Tirico kept saying (as if Queens could hardly ever be expected to produce an owner of a Belmont horse) was a deserving winner. Mike Repole made a fortune selling Vitamin Water to another company, and since has pretty much followed his passion for horse racing and built a juggernaut of a stable, winning many classic races on the NYRA and Gulfstream circuits.
Mike Repole is from Queens, having gone to Holy Cross High School in Flushing, not far from where I used to live. He graduated from St. John's University in Jamaica, Queens. He and his buddies had horse racing fever at an early age, and spent many an hour at the track, often on small amounts of money borrowed from his family, always having to pay them back—quickly.
Mike is no longer from Queens. He lives quite nicely in a spread in East Norwich, NY, a wealthy enclave in Nassau County that requires lots of acreage per home.
His orange and blue silks are quite distinctive and are evocative of the New York Met colors, blue and orange. I wonder if he knows that Mrs. Payson, when she cobbled the deals it took to get a National League franchise back into New York after the defection of the Dodgers and the Giants after the 1957 season, purposely chose the orange and blue colors for the Mets because they were New York Giant and Dodger colors. Mike from Queens indeed.
Not only did the Repole connection win the Belmont with Donegal racing, he also won the Brooklyn Handicap with Fearless, a mile and a half race. There is always a mile and a half race scheduled on the Belmont card to in effect give the starting gate crew a rehearsal for positioning the gate square in front of the stands. Belmont is a mile and a half oval, the largest track in North America.
Mo Donegal was generously priced as the favorite at 5/2. The Derby winner Rich Strike was nowhere, no factor in a dull effort, even after resting and skipping the Preakness. Rich Strike just might be one of those horses that can only wake up on a certain surface, and that surface just might be Churchill Downs. His only two lifetime victories have come at Churchill, winning his second race, a $30,000 maiden claimer by an astounding 17 lengths. He was claimed from that race, with Calumet Farm giving up on him after a very dismal first race at Ellis Park, a third tier track in Kentucky. He just might not be able to keep up with the big dogs, despite his Keen Ice, Curlin breeding from a Smart Strike mare.
Johnny M. and I will likely go out to Belmont this Saturday, when there will be no one there. We'll look at the Repole silks displayed in the infield, and smile. Johnny M. and I are like Mike, we're both from Queens.
One hundred fifty-four Belmonts. Forty-six more and they can celebrate the 200th running. That's what I've always loved about racing—the continuity.
http://www.onoffrmp.blogspot.com
No comments:
Post a Comment