You could say that buyers at the 99th annual Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale weren’t horsing around. For the second year in a row, the annual auction of yearling Thoroughbreds, which ran from August 5-6 and draws horse enthusiasts and bidders from all over the world, set a number of new records in both average and median sale prices.
Leading those record-breaking figures this year was a pair of colts sired by Curlin, a two-time Horse of the Year winner and winner of the 2007 Preakness Stakes. Both of the sons of Curlin topped the sale on August 6 when they were auctioned for a staggering $1.5 million each. That price shattered last year’s single-sale record of $1.35 million. Aquis Farm AUS (an Australian-based horse racing company), Let’s Go Stable and Crawford Farm all teamed up to purchase the first colt. The other yearling was bought by a Saratoga-based racing partnership manager and creator, West Point Thoroughbreds (WPT) and its team of partners, which included Siena Farm, Woodford Racing, Valdes Singleton, William Sandbrook and William T. Freeman.
“These are the kind of horses that you dream about,” says Terry Finley, West Point Thoroughbreds’ President and CEO. “When you’re dealing with horses at this level, if and when they hit, they can change your life, and, most importantly, the lives of our partners.” Located on Route 9 in Saratoga, WPT is a kind of horse racing hedge fund that purchases yearlings and two-year-olds at auction and then builds and manages groups of investors into syndicates who essentially buy “shares” in each horse. Those syndicates, or partnerships, can include really anyone who’s interested in the sport, both experts and newcomers.
In fact, one of those WPT partners who went in with Finley on that $1.5 million yearling was celebrity chef and Food Network regular Bobby Flay. “I’ve always admired Flay, and I love his restaurants in the city, especially GATO,” says Finley. “I’ve gone there quite a few times, and if Bobby’s there, we inevitably end up talking about pedigrees and sales and racing.” In fact, more than just a casual partner at WPT (and a regular at Saratoga Race Course), Flay actually owns the mare that gave birth to Curlin’s record-breaking yearling that WPT and its partners wound up acquiring.
In all, 135 yearlings were sold at this year’s Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale for a grand total of $55,547,000. That equals an average price of $411,459 per horse, a more than 11 percent increase over last year’s average and a 7 percent increase over the previous record of $385,259, which was set in 2001.
Apparently, this is the summer of the baseball card. At the tail-end of May, Cooperstown‘s National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum launched a standalone exhibit on the production and proliferation of the collectible card. (One of the many cards the museum had on display was the modern-day “Mona Lisa,” at least IMO, the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle.) Then, just this past week, the annual National Sports Collectors Convention wrapped just outside of Chicago; it’s where all of the top collectors in the world convene to show and sell their wares. And now, according to whomever decides what the next unofficial holiday to celebrate is on social media, this Saturday, August 10, marks National Baseball Card Day. (I celebrated it last year at one of these fine, local establishments, so it’s a “thing.”)
If you’re looking for a respite from the hustle and bustle of Saratoga Race Course and have the collecting bug as bad as I do, I’d urge you to head down to Old Fulton Plaza in Brooklyn, NY—right by the picturesque Brooklyn Bridge—where first, on Friday, August 9, the OG baseball card producer, the Topps Company, will be setting up a mobile baseball card giveaway truck. You won’t be able to miss it, because it’ll be decked out completely in baseball cards, and an attendant inside will be handing out free wares to all interested parties. The giveaway will begin at 11am sharp.
On National Baseball Card Day itself, Topps will also be handing out free, National Baseball Card Day-branded baseball cards at Major League Baseball stadiums across the country. (If you’re wondering, The New York Yankees are out of town this Friday and Saturday, but the New York Mets will be playing a series at home at Citi Field against the Washington Nationals, and will not only be giving away free baseball cards on Sunday the 11th, but also free t-shirts on the 9th and free Hawaiian shirts on the 10th.)
“National Baseball Card Day is about celebrating the infectious hobby of card collecting and remembering the best moments in baseball, through our collections,” says Clay Luraschi, Topps’ global vice president of product development. “We’re thrilled to share an exclusive set of cards at no cost to new and long-time fans, as Topps continues to be an integral part of baseball, our national pastime.”
Of course, Topps will also be giving away free packs of cards at local hobby shops in the US and Canada, too, including at Matt’s Baseball in Watervliet, which will be open on Saturday from 9am – 3pm, and handing out packs to customers, per Owner Matt Wheeler. (For a full list of participating hobby shops, click here; Walmart and Target will also be taking part in the free giveaway.) The specially produced packs will feature stars such as Los Angeles Angels’ slugger Mike Trout, New York Mets’ rookie phenom Pete Alonso and Houston Astros (and Tri-City Valley Cats alum) José Altuve; and in addition to the normal star cards, some lucky collectors will be able to find randomly inserted autographed cards within their National Baseball Card Day packs.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Saudi Arabia will host a $20 million race in February next year on the dirt course at King Abdul Aziz racetrack in Riyadh, the country’s racing authority and members of the ruling family announced on Wednesday, instantly making the country a player on the international racing scene with the promise of the richest purse in the world.
The race, called the Saudi Cup, is scheduled for Feb. 29 next year, four weeks after the Pegasus World Cup in Florida and four weeks prior to the $12 million Dubai World Cup in the nearby United Arab Emirates. The Saudi Cup will be run at about 1 1/8 miles, or 1,800 meters, and will be open to 4-year-olds and up (Southern Hemisphere 3-year-olds will also be eligible).
“This is an event that we plan on lasting for decades, beyond my lifetime, and what we hope is for this race to be on the international calendar, to be one of the main races sought after [in the world],” said Prince Bandar bin Khalid al Faisal, who was on hand at a media event at the Fasig-Tipton sales pavilion to announce the race.
The audacious plan to host the world’s richest race will vault Saudi Arabia from a minor player on the international Thoroughbred racing stage to a major attraction on the international racing circuit. None of the races currently held at the country’s two racetracks qualify for the international cataloging standards that determine the world’s best races, but the new race – and a soon to be announced undercard – will likely end that distinction.
“It is an opportunity for us to showcase horseracing in Saudi Arabia,” Prince Bandar said. “We are very keen to transform [our racing] into an industry, one that is sustainable, that can grow to a level that is on par with the best out there.”
The dirt course at King Abdul Aziz racetrack has a circumference of 2,400 meters, or about 1 1/2 miles, and the 1,800-meter Saudi Cup will be run out of a backstretch chute around one turn, the organizers said. At the media event, the organizers of the race broadcast a television clip of Lanfranco Dettori, the famous jockey, comparing the course’s circumference to Belmont Park and stating that “the kickback is not too harsh,” in answer to a question as to whether turf specialists would find the dirt surface welcoming.
The field will be capped at 14 horses, according to a fact sheet distributed by the organizers. The winner of the race will get $10 million, while second place will get $3.5 million, and third place will get $2 million. Fourth will receive $1.5 million and fifth receives $1 million. Horses finishing through 10th place will get a portion of the purse.
The organizers have not yet determined how the field will be set, but there will be no entry or starting fees, they said.
Representatives of the organizers said that they expected wagering to be offered on the Saudi Cup and its undercard in racing jurisdictions around the world, including the U.S. Betting is not allowed in Saudi Arabia.
The announcement of the $20 million purse escalates a recent arms race among Gulfstream Park and the racing authorities in Dubai to lay claim to the richest race in the world. In 2017 and 2018, the Pegasus World Cup advertised its purse as $12 million and $16 million, respectively (though the actual distributions were $9 million and $8.5 million, due to a unique structure that refunded entry money to runners), while the Dubai World Cup raised its purse to $12 million this year, up from $10 million.
The placement of the race between the Pegasus World Cup and the Dubai World Cup introduces the possibility that a horse could run and win all three races, clearly an aim of the Saudi authorities.
“We chose the timing very carefully,” said Prince Bandar. “We think it fits in nicely between those two races. It’s close enough to the Dubai Cub that those people who do come to that part of the world [Saudi Arabia] can stay, since it’s a wonderful area to train. I think it’s very lucky we had that opening between the two races, and we’re going to own it.”
“This is a new Triple Crown that is starting right now,” said Gary Stevens, the retired Hall of Fame jockey, who was on hand for the event.
Harry Herbert, who is the Saudi Cup Global Ambassador, said that the race will showcase both horseracing and Saudi Arabian culture.
“It’s a wonderful opportunity to show off your country, your culture, your racing heritage, your heritage in general, and I think that is just everything about our sport,” Herbert said. “From a competition perspective, it’s flying your flag, it’s representing your country.”
In 1996, my daily diet of music consisted of a rotating cast of bought and borrowed compact discs, including everything from Beck’s Odelay (borrowed), The Figgs‘ Banda Macho (bought) and Tool’s Aenima (bought); to Rage Against the Machine’s Evil Empire (borrowed), Metallica’s Load (borrowed) and the Eels’ Beautiful Freak (bought/borrowed), an album I purchased for my older brother as a birthday present, then ended up basically co-opting. In a word, my tastes were all over the place. In the middle of this milieu, I was a 16-year-old sophomore at Saratoga Springs Senior High School, who played the cello, got decent marks, was in a Misfits cover band and had trouble fitting in. I wasn’t a jock or a drinker, didn’t have a girlfriend and was painfully awkward.
Amongst all of that personal baggage and glorious noise, my local alternative rock radio station of choice, 102.7 WEQX, started spinning a tune, “Mother Mother,” by a female solo artist named Tracy Bonham, whom, for months, I wrongly assumed was the daughter of Led Zeppelin’s late drummer John Bonham. (These were the days before you could find quick-fix answers on the Internet, when you had to wait until Rolling Stone magazine came to your doorstep to learn the secret lives of your favorite artists.) She might as well have been Zep progeny, though; her song, which soon hit heavy rotation, was like “Over The Hills And Far Away,” in the sense that the lovey-dovey acoustic intro eventually gave way to a powder-keg blast. “Mother Mother” was an angsty, tongue-in-cheek answering-machine-message to a/her mother, which begins with a staccato acoustic guitar accompaniment to Bonham’s gorgeous, serpentine vocals and then just detonates at the 0:43 mark into a full-swing rock song. By the one-minute-ten-second mark, it becomes a nuclear warhead, with Bonham sing-whispering, “I’m hun-gry, I’m dir-ty, I’m losing my miiiiind…EVERYTHING’S FINE!,” screaming those last two words from a guttural region rarely navigated by a female vocalist on alt-rock radio at the time—or ever since, for that matter.
“Mother Mother” was folk, rock and metal all at the same time, and I absolutely loved it. And so did everybody else. The three-minute song rose all the way to No.1 on Billboard‘s Modern Rock Tracks chart, no small feat for a (female) solo artist. (That wouldn’t be accomplished again for another 17 years, when Lorde’s “Royals” took over the airwaves in 2013.) “Mother Mother” would end up garnering Bonham Grammy nominations for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance (it lost out to the equally edgy “If It Makes You Happy” by Sheryl Crow) and Best Alternative Album, for the album it appeared on, The Burdens of Being Upright (which, in turn, lost out to Beck’s Odelay). I can still listen to that song and be transported back to ’96, and feel all the angst that had built up inside me. I so badly wanted to stand up on my desk or in the cafeteria in high school—or better yet, at home, at my dinner table—and scream “EVERYTHING’S FINE!,” even though I knew it wasn’t.
Tracy Bonham’s forthcoming album, from which she’ll be performing songs at Caffè Lena, is tentatively entitled ‘Punk Meditation.’
Fast-forward to 2005, and I was living with a roommate in Astoria, Queens, and everything still wasn’t so fine. I absolutely despised my book publishing job and daily tried to summon the courage to quit (I eventually did). My goal was to become a full-time rock music writer like Lester Bangs or Cameron Crowe. The latter was something that I’d been dabbling with ever since interning at Rolling Stone magazine a few short years prior—what brought me to the city in the first place. It was an internship I’d enjoyed immensely but which put me on the verge of a daily panic attack, because I was in such awe of everything about it. (I remember only being able to eke out a meep or two to heroes of mine such as David Fricke, Jann Wenner and Jason Fine.) Through a connection at the magazine, though, I’d begun writing regular reviews for American Songwriter by ’05, and was getting a steady stream of advance copies of albums in the mail. One that showed up at my doorstep and immediately hit heavy rotation on my five-CD-disc-changer was Bonham’s third album, Blink the Brightest (I remember that it not only came in a jewel case but had its own removable paper sleeve, too, adding a level of “special” to it.) As far as I can tell, I was never able to place a review for the album in American Songwriter, but I’m sure my editor assigned it to someone else. Had I had the chance to write it, though, my 150-word review would’ve been a four-star rave: I was enamored of it almost immediately. “Something Beautiful,” the lead track, was graceful pop candy with an infectious chorus. Track No.3, “And The World Has The Nerve To Keep Turning,” was the goth cousin of The Beatles’ “Blue Jay Way,” which I heard Bonham and her band perform at the Housing Works Bookstore one evening that April, her version slathered in trippy violin (among other talents, Bonham’s a classically trained fiddler; I hat-tipped her cover in a story I did for another website years later about, ahem, “underrated” Beatles songs). And “All Thumbs,” a song about constantly running away from love, echoed the voice inside my head that kept saying, “Dude, you’re going to be alone for the rest of your life.” I listened to that song enough to believe it had been written about me.
Thankfully, that voice didn’t know what the hell it was talking about: Two years later, I met the woman of my dreams, who would later become my wife, and I believe I put one of Bonham’s songs—maybe “Something Beautiful”?—on a mixed-CD for her while we were dating. Interestingly, the year Blink the Brightest dropped, Bonham herself found true love as well, eventually marrying—wait for it—Rolling Stone editor Jason Fine. (Neither I nor fate had anything to do with it.) The couple, who now has a son, divide their time between Brooklyn and Woodstock, NY.
These days, both Bonham and I are seemingly living the dream. I was able to land this gig at saratoga living in my beloved hometown of all places, and she’s continued—from my old second home of Brooklyn and one of my favorite places on Earth, Woodstock—to make music that’s worth its weight in gold. Like 2017’s Modern Burdens, for instance, an album on which she, along with a laundry list of talented female vocalists such as Nicole Atkins and Tanya Donelly, “covers” her own debut album, track for track, save for a 13th song, aptly entitled “Free.” (Of the record, says Bonham, “It was probably the most liberating experience I’ve had making a record.”) On Burdens, her biggest hit, “Mother Mother,” is reimagined as a sultry, lounge act number in 12/8 time (she also subsequently re-recorded the song this year as a way of “reclaiming” it from her original record label; depressingly, she tells me her lawyer’s in the process of trying to figure out whether the original master for the song was lost, along with many other great ones, in the 2008 Universal fire). Bonham retooled the second verse of the Burdens version, giving it a, shall we say, stripped-from-the-headlines makeover (I’ll let you do the side-by-side comparison).
Luckily, Bonham, or rather her music, hasn’t ever been too far from my life. And this Friday, August 9, you’ll be able to enjoy exactly what I have for all these years in the comfort of Saratoga Springs’ most intimate and historic of venues, Caffè Lena. (Tickets are still available and cost anywhere from $11-$22.) It’s one that Bonham’s surprisingly never played before, despite having performed at its big sister across town, the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, back in ’98 as part of the all-women Lilith Fair lineup. “I’m excited [to play Caffè Lena], because I’ve heard that the audiences are great; they’re super warm, open and listen; you’ve got two sets, so you can really spread things out; and [the audience is] a real music crowd,” says Bonham. (I can’t argue with that assessment.) And while fans will likely be hearing a nice cross-section from her six studio records and various EPs, they’ll also be hearing a handful of new tracks from a forthcoming album, which she’s tentatively calling Punk Meditation (there’s no street date for it as of yet). “My whole attitude about life and songwriting is so different now than it was in the ’90s, but there’s still a spirit to it,” she says. “I wouldn’t say it’s a punk album, but there’s still a lot to be angry about and yet, my musical tastes have kind of eased up. The two of those things, which normally don’t go together, can go together on this album. That’s my goal.” My 16-year-old self couldn’t be more excited.
SARATOGA SPRINGS – Maximum Security, a multiple Grade 1 winner, was credited with a half-mile workout in 54 seconds Wednesday at Monmouth Park, which was basically how fast he went the last half-mile of a one-mile gallop. Afterwards, trainer Jason Servis told the Monmouth Park publicity office that he won’t decide until Aug. 19 or 20 whether to run in the Grade 1, $1.25 million Travers on Aug. 24.
“I just want to make sure he is 100 percent,” Servis said. “He’s still not there yet.”
If Maximum Security does run in the Travers, it is unlikely he will face Preakness winner War of Will, one of the horses the Churchill Downs stewards determined Maximum Security fouled in the Kentucky Derby, from which he was disqualified from first.
Trainer Mark Casse said Wednesday that War of Will is “very unlikely” for the Travers and more likely to run in the $1 million Pennsylvania Derby at Parx on Sept. 21.
“I thought his [Kentucky] Derby was really good. We did that off a long layoff,” Casse said. “It just seems to make the most sense to me.”
On Thursday, August 1, Equine Advocates hosted its 18th Annual Awards Dinner and Charity Auction at the Canfield Casino. This year’s 2019 Safe Home Equine Protection Award was given to Staci Hancock for co-founding and managing the Water Hay Oats Alliance, a foundation that advocates for the ban of performance-enhancing drugs on horses. Hancock was one of many honorees at the gala, which highlighted the achievements in horse issues including equine rescue, sanctuary, advocacy and humane education. Funds and proceeds raised at the event went to the maintenance and operation Equine Advocates’ 140-acre horse sanctuary in Chatham, NY, and the care of its 80 equine residents, most of which are rescues.
A quote from Hancock on the Equine Advocates website reads, “Over the last thirty years, I have witnessed countless numbers of ‘equine advocates’ grow in ranks across America with their focus on welfare issues: slaughter, rescue, rehoming, second careers and medication concerns. In 2019, equine welfare is front and center. I hope I can represent each and every person who has put their time, talents and treasures behind efforts to do what is right for our horses. I am honored to accept the Equine Advocates Safe Home Award on their behalf.”
Other honorees at the event included Carol and Tracy Farmer, who received this year’s Ellen and Herbert Moelis Equine Savior Award for their efforts to pass the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act in 2005, and for their continued support of equine aftercare and rescue.
It was so early in the morning that I didn’t even bother to grab a cup of coffee before heading out to the track. I was meeting up with fellow saratoga living photographer Billy Francis LeRoux. We had high hopes for a foggy morning and a foggy morning we received! This is the kind of detail that photographers dream about. In fact, I think I did dream about it the previous night.
After a few shots at the main track, we headed across the street to the Oklahoma Training Track along with a caravan of backstretch workers. As the sky grew lighter, horses and humans alike began waking up to the day. Riding tack was donned and the horses and riders casually paraded out to the Oklahoma Track, where a thick white fog (and friendly media photographers!) awaited.
And we felt welcomed, too! Greetings of “Hello” and “Good morning” went a long way. Even the horses took note when we raised our cameras; one of my favorite photographs from the morning is of the horse peeking over the hay and smiling for me!
It was definitely worth waking up early just to photograph the horses training in that beautiful fog. But there was something else that made it even more worth it: the sense of community.
For more track photography from Katie Dobies, click here.
On Saturday, August 3, the Saratoga Springs community remembered the late Marylou Whitney and honored her legacy at the Whitney Stakes, the 92nd running of the historic race and the first since Whitney’s passing. The Bob Baffert-trained McKinzie, ridden by jockey Mike Smith, came out on top of the Grade 1, $1 million race.
This year, the Whitney Stakes wasn’t just about the race, though. To honor Whitney, Governor Andrew Cuomo, who was at Saratoga Race Course for the first time since becoming governor, announced plans to build the Marylou Whitney Pavilion, a hospitality center for backstretch employees. He also announced that August 3 has been officially named Marylou Whitney Day. The day before, Whitney was posthumously inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in the Pillars of the Turf category.
saratoga livingstaff photographer Billy Fracis LeRoux was one of those in attendance Saturday, and, per usual, nabbed a stunning collection of photos from one of Saratoga’s most important races. Be sure to click through the gallery above to see his shots.
On Monday, August 5, the world lost a true literary mastermind in Toni Morrison. She was 88. Morrison was the author of 11 novels and rose to prominence in 1977, when her Song of Solomon won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her literary star reached the stratosphere in 1987, though, when she won the Pulitzer Prize and American Book Award for Beloved. (She also published several children’s books and nonfiction works, and was a longtime scholar of literature.)
Six years after Beloved hit bookshelves, Morrison received the highest honor an author can receive, as she won a Nobel Prize in Literature, even more special, because she was the first African American to win the prestigious award. When awarded the 1993 Nobel Prize, the Swedish Academy hailed her as an author, “…who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality.”
Morrison, born Chloe Anthony Wofford in 1931, grew up with a love of reading. After graduating high school with honors in 1949, she pursued an undergraduate degree in English with a minor in Classics from Howard University, followed by a master’s degree from Cornell University. She then taught at Texas Southern University before returning to Howard, where she became an English professor. After a short-lived marriage to Harold Morrison, a Jamaican architect, she moved with her two sons, Ford and Slade, to Syracuse, NY, where she worked as the first-ever female African-American editor at Random House from 1967-83. According to the company, “[Morrison’s] work as an editor and publisher demonstrated a unique commitment to writers of color and helped in opening industry doors to them.” It was during this time as a single, working mother that she wrote and published her first novel, The Bluest Eye, in 1970.
In the years following, Morrison’s work became a literary canon giving voice to the African-American experience from the beginnings of our country to the present century. Her academic achievements as a scholar and educator of literature and creative writing took her to notable institutions such as Yale University, Princeton University and the University at Albany from 1984-88, during which time she was writing her Pulitzer Prize-winning Beloved. In 1996, Morrison was awarded the National Book Foundation’s Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters for her works, and was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2012.
“Morrison’s gift to us was both aesthetic and moral,” says Mason Stokes, professor of African-American literature at Skidmore College. “Through the beauty of her language, her ability to put words on a page in just the right order, she offered difficult wisdom, necessary truth. She once told an interviewer, ‘If you can only be tall because somebody is on their knees, then you have a serious problem.’ I hope that we’ll continue to look to Morrison as a guide. As someone showing us the way—beautifully.”
Marylou Whitney, the “Queen of Saratoga,” may be gone, but she’s far from forgotten. Whitney passed away on July 19 at the age of 93, but memorials and touching stories about her are still circulating online and across New York State. The most recent high-profile person to pay respects to Whitney was none other than New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. On August 3, while visiting Saratoga Race Course for the first time as Governor, Cuomo announced plans to honor Whitney by constructing a new hospitality center for backstretch employees called the Marylou Whitney Pavilion. This new, permanent facility, which will include an entertainment area and host dinners and special events for backstretch workers, will be located at the Oklahoma Training Track just across Union Avenue from Saratoga Race Course, where much of the training and preparation takes place before the big races. Governor Cuomo also officially declared August 3 to be Marylou Whitney Day across New York State.
An artist’s rendering of the Marylou Whitney Pavilion.
“Marylou was the heart, the spirit, the personality, the mystique, the beauty and the charisma that represents the best of New York’s horse racing industry,” Governor Cuomo said at Saratoga Race Course’s 1863 Club on August 3, the day of Whitney’s signature race, the Grade 1 Whitney Stakes. “Marylou and her husband John [Hendrickson] were the drivers for the industry’s success, and they were extraordinarily devoted to the wellbeing of the many seasonal backstretch workers who are the backbone of Saratoga Race Course.”
The former actress, philanthropist and racehorse owner and breeder was instrumental in revitalizing interest not just in Saratoga Race Course but in the Spa City as a whole. Whitney first came to Saratoga Springs in 1958, back when the Spa City was pretty much a ghost town, and immediately set out to transform Saratoga into the summer tourist hotspot it is today. In 2007, Whitney and her husband John Hendrickson, the President of the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, began a Backstretch Appreciation program, hosting and attending regular dinners and events in a tent on the Oklahoma Track. The new Marylou Whitney Pavilion will replace this temporary tent and continue the programming of Backstretch Appreciation, offering dinners and entertainment for the track’s many backstretch workers. The new facility is scheduled to open by July 2020, and once completed, will hold up to 400 people.
“Her decades of consistent support improved the lives of the men and women who sustain racing not only here in Saratoga but around New York State,” said David O’Rourke, the president and CEO of the New York Racing Association (NYRA). “The Marylou Whitney Pavilion is a fitting tribute to the life and legacy of someone who meant so much to the fabric of Saratoga Race Course. Thanks to Governor Cuomo, the Backstretch Appreciation program will now have a permanent home.”
