SARATOGA LIVINGThe City. The Culture. The Life.

Most summers, Bob Baffert makes the cross-country trip from SoCal’s lovely seaside track at Del Mar to Saratoga Springs during the racing season. America’s most famous, successful and recognizable Triple Crown-winning trainer doesn’t travel 2839 miles for our mineral water—but he certainly appreciates the atmosphere. Baffert comes for the big races or to check out a hot prospect at the Fasig-Tipton yearling sale. In 2009, he was in town for his induction into the Hall of Fame at the National Museum of Racing.

Baffert knows Saratoga and Saratoga knows the white-haired superstar, who grew up on a chicken ranch in Nogales, AZ. He’s won the Travers Stakes three times—including with track-record-smashing Arrogate in 2016—and was part of a historic loss in 2015, when his Triple Crown winner, American Pharoah, was dealt a major upset at the fabled “Graveyard of Favorites.”

During and after Baffert’s horse, Justify, swept the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes this year, giving him his record-tying second Triple Crown, saratoga living spoke with the trainer about a number of topics, including what it’s like bringing horses to Saratoga Race Course—and what he does in town when he’s not on the clock.

1. You’ve been to plenty of tracks in your career. What makes Saratoga and its fabled racetrack stand out?
Saratoga is a horse racing town. There’s so much history there, and you know when you go, you’re going to see top-class racing. The fans are so enthusiastic.

2. Is there a different feel to winning at Saratoga?
Definitely. When you win at Saratoga, you know you’ve beaten the best. It’s a big stage—the best trainers, best jockeys, best horses and biggest owners. Everyone wants to stand in the Winner’s Circle in Saratoga.

3. Do you remember your very first visit to Saratoga Springs? Why were you here?
My first trip to Saratoga was with Silverbulletday in 1999 for the Alabama. She won the race.

4. Did you expect her to blow away the field by nine lengths?
We felt pretty confident going in after her poor performance in the Belmont Stakes [she ran seventh; she was beaten by 10½ lengths]. She had been working up a storm in Saratoga. It was a great feeling to win in front of such a large and important audience. Greatness is defined in Saratoga.

5. What do you do in Saratoga when you’re not at the track?
I love Siro’s. The food’s great, and it’s a fun place to go after a big win to “talk about it.” I also love the turkey dinner at Winslow’s. It was [HOF inductee trainer] Bobby Frankel’s favorite place, and he used to take me there.

6. What’s the best horse you’ve trained that won at Saratoga?
Arrogate.

7. What was your biggest disappointment at Saratoga?
American Pharoah. Obviously.

8. What has been the most satisfying moment of your career as a horse trainer?
There have been so many, but I’d have to say winning the Triple Crown with American Pharoah. It was such a relief to get that monkey off my back. Then to finish out the year with him winning the Breeders’ Cup Classic. It was the perfect ending to his racing career. Winning another Triple Crown with Justify this year was unbelievable, too. And raising the Derby trophy is always satisfying.

9. If you weren’t training racehorses, what might you be doing right now?
I’ve never wanted to do anything other than be around horses. I can’t imagine doing anything else.

10. What are your memories of being inducted into the Hall of Fame in Saratoga in 2009?
I remember looking out in the audience and seeing my mom and dad sitting there. I got so choked up thinking about them and everything they meant to our family and to my career. My wife and all of my children and siblings were there. So many of my owners and friends made the trip just to be there beside me. It was one of the best and most humbling days of my life.

A few years ago, I was obsessed with the HBO series Boardwalk Empire. Set in the 1920s, the show featured several of the Prohibition Era’s most notorious gangsters, gamblers and bootleggers, who were looking to strike it rich in some corrupt industry, all the while avoiding prison time (and enemy gunfire). The series showcased the historical-fiction-y likes of Al Capone, Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky, but my favorite was the cerebral Arnold Rothstein, known as “The Big Bankroll.” I knew of Rothstein for his alleged role as the architect of the 1919 World Series fix, better known as the “Black Sox Scandal.” What I didn’t know was that Rothstein had his hands in Thoroughbred racing as well. On occasion, Boardwalk Empire made reference to Saratoga Springs, and when one of the scenes featured Rothstein in the stable area at an unidentified racetrack with Hall of Fame trainer Max Hirsch, I had to know more about Rothstein’s connection to the sport and the Spa City. Turns out Rothstein was a player in the racing game for a time, and Saratoga was one of his playgrounds. He owned some horses, manipulated races, cashed enormous bets and drew the ire of August Belmont II and The Jockey Club for his presence at the track.

But one of his most nefarious plots occurred in 1921, when Rothstein masterminded a major betting coup on the Travers Stakes with the colt Sporting Blood, one of his own, thanks to some valuable inside information and an assist from a trainer and horse that didn’t even participate in the race. At the conclusion of a whirlwind series of events, Rothstein walked away with $450,000 on top of the $10,275 winner’s share of the purse (more than $5.8 million in 2018 terms).

At the ’21 Travers, Harry Payne Whitney’s superb filly, Prudery, was widely regarded as a sure bet. She’d won the Alabama Stakes with ease and defeated Sporting Blood by four lengths in the Miller Stakes. No one figured Prudery could be beat in the Travers, so no other horses of note were expected to be entered and the race figured to be a walkover. Rothstein had other ideas. To the surprise of many, he entered Sporting Blood, under the name of his own Redstone Stable, to face Whitney’s filly. Bookmakers were offering Prudery at 1-4 odds with Sporting Blood at 5-2. Why would Rothstein enter Sporting Blood, for just a meager second-place finish? Rothstein, as always, had an angle. His sources within the Whitney barn relayed to him that it was unlikely that Prudery could deliver a top effort in the Travers; the filly had lost her appetite and had missed some training time. Rothstein saw an opportunity to stir the pot even more by adding a chaotic element to the betting. He sought a distraction to aid his plot and got one: On race day, Belmont Stakes-winner Grey Lag, generally regarded as the best horse in the country at the time, was unexpectedly entered into the race. It turned out that the horse’s trainer, Sam Hildreth, was friends with Rothstein. Suddenly, Sporting Blood was the afterthought Rothstein wanted him to be. Grey Lag had already beaten him in the Belmont and a pair of other races that year. The Travers, however, wasn’t part of Grey Lag’s expected schedule, as it was assumed he was being prepared for a race at Belmont in September after a grueling schedule of six races in July. When Grey Lag was entered in the Travers on the morning of the race, he replaced Prudery as the favorite, and that day, there was little talk of Sporting Blood or any Arnold Rothstein element of manipulation.

That’s when Rothstein unleashed his true ruse. He ordered his “betting commissioners” throughout the country to wager heavily—to the tune of $150,000 (about $2 million)—on his horse, which was now the third choice with the trackside bookmakers. At the time, horses could be entered to run the same day until noon. They could also be scratched by a trainer up to 30 minutes before post time, without cause or explanation. Rothstein was well aware of this. Hildreth, of course, scratched Grey Lag at the last possible minute. At the track, the Grey Lag money shifted mostly toward Prudery, while Rothstein’s money was elsewhere, secured at generous odds of 3-1. Whenever word got around that Rothstein was placing bets, it caused an uproar and led to odds being altered dramatically, but it was different offtrack, with the bets spread far and wide to provide the cover of anonymity.

In the race itself, Prudery led for the first mile but never by more than a length. When the horses hit the quarter pole, the filly was spent, and Rothstein’s scheme was about to bear fruit. Sporting Blood was a capable runner and cruised past the exhausted Prudery to win, easily, by two lengths. As was the case with the World Series and numerous other shady events involving Rothstein, there was plenty of speculation about the circumstances of the race after the fact, but no one could ever link Rothstein to the scam. There was also a considerable amount of hearsay that Hildreth received a cut of the action for the Grey Lag diversion, but that, too, was never substantiated.

That Travers was Redstone Stable’s biggest moment in racing, but Rothstein didn’t seem to have any interest in the prestige of his horse’s victory. Following the race, Rothstein sold Sporting Blood for $60,000 (about $760,000 today) and announced that the rest of his horses were for sale as well. By the end of October, he’d dissolved Redstone Stable and moved on to other illicit endeavors.

Rothstein was a presence in Saratoga for quite some time before and after his Travers caper. He married former showgirl Carolyn Greene in a house on Washington Street in 1909, opened The Brook casino here in 1919 and was regularly accused of bribing public officials and being involved in everything from insurance fraud to race fixing. His luck finally ran out when he was shot and killed in New York City in 1928 at the age of 46, supposedly because he refused to pay a gambling debt. I couldn’t imagine Rothstein going out any other way.

Early in 2018, when the saratoga living editorial team hunkered down to discuss what stories we were going to place in our best-ever “The Races!” (track) issue, I remember some of the longest conversations being about how to properly honor the “Queen of Saratoga,” Marylou Whitney. The thought was that if we were going to pull off a single-subject issue on Saratoga Springs’ historic horse races and racetrack—and everything else equine-related in between—Marylou Whitney needed to be given the pages afforded to our most important features, and our audience should get the comprehensive close-read that we knew it deserved. And, of course, we needed to find the perfect scribe to take on the
mammoth task of spinning a story that was equal-parts love letter, historical treatise and gripping must-read—one who would, above all, be taken seriously by our elevated Saratoga readership. We ultimately decided that former saratoga living Editor Maria McBride Bucciferro was the perfect person to tackle such a challenging and exhilarating assignment.

As we always seem to be in the magazine business, saratoga living was working on an extremely tight deadline leading up to “The Races!” issue, so we had precious little time to get the story right. I’ll never forget taking Maria’s draft with me on a short weekend getaway to Kayuta Lake (near Old Forge, NY), and waking up early to give the fascinating opus a close read and first edit. Predictably, the story got its well-deserved red-carpet rollout in the issue, shining like the bright sun that it was. By the end of the summer, it was nearly impossible to find a single copy of “The Races!” issue anywhere in the Capital Region, including our own Broadway headquarters. In effect, the issue had “sold out”—and our coverage of Marylou Whitney was a large reason why.

When we lost Marylou Whitney this July 19, her passing just happened to coincide with the release date of saratoga living’s 2019 “The Races!” issue, in which we’d inaugurated her as the first and only member of our Power List’s Hall Of Fame. On that exceedingly sad day, I was glued to saratogaliving.com, and later that afternoon, I noticed a New York Racing Association tweet announcing Marylou Whitney’s passing. That was almost immediately followed by a monumental, unprecedented spike in traffic to our website. Curious readers had not only found our fortuitous tribute to the Saratoga icon on our Power List, but had also rediscovered the comprehensive feature from 2018 on her as well. No one should be surprised that Marylou Whitney’s riveting life story, as written by Maria McBride Bucciferro, currently ranks as the most-read story in our website’s history.

—Will Levith

Marylou Whitney has been as comfortable with movie stars as she has with backstretch workers and bellhops; she’s at home in the foaling barn, on Alaskan dogsleds and at the Queen’s Palace. Her constant mantra of “I love Saratoga” has shined an international spotlight on this city and its racetrack, whose trajectories are intricately linked. She even coined the city’s best-known catchphrase, “Saratoga: the summer place to be,” and has rightfully earned the heady moniker “Savior of Saratoga.” Though not a Whitney by birth, she’s taken up the family’s racing and service mantle, extending the Whitney and Vanderbilt dynasties well beyond the turn of the century, and winning millions as the head of Marylou Whitney Stables. A mix of Lady Gaga, Grace Kelly and Gracie Allen—with a touch of Mother Teresa—Marylou Whitney is more than just Saratoga’s most famous face and name. She is Saratoga. Let me tell you the incredible story of how she singlehandedly saved this city and its racetrack from the brink of disaster. It’s one every true Saratogian should know by heart.

Everyone who’s ever called Saratoga home is keenly aware of the great impact Marylou Whitney’s had on the city, but, in turn, that Saratoga wasn’t always the incomparable tourist destination it is today. While most Saratogians can robotically recite the following, decidedly dour historical footnotes, know that Marylou actually lived them. “Everything at the time was dead here; the track was dead!” Marylou has said of Saratoga when she first arrived here as a newlywed in 1958. “You could roll a basketball down the center of town and not hit anyone.” Her husband, Cornelius “Sonny” Vanderbilt Whitney, encouraged his new bride to help save Saratoga Race Course and the town itself, and thankfully, she agreed. “Sonny, with your money and my enthusiasm and work, we can light up this town!” said Marylou. And light it up she did.

I first interviewed Marylou in 1987 for Adirondack Life magazine and covered her on and off throughout the years for Times Union, The Post-Star and The Saratogian newspapers, and also within these pages. Sonny was 88 and Marylou 61 when I first visited them at Cady Hill, their 21-room, 135-acre estate on Geyser Road in Saratoga. A financier of the company that would become Pan American World Airways and founder of the theme park Marineland of Florida, Sonny was a decorated veteran of World War I and II, having served as Assistant Secretary of the Air Force and Undersecretary of Commerce. He’d also helped finance film classics such as Rebecca and Gone With The Wind. Marie Louise “Marylou” Schroeder was born on December 24, 1925, and grew up in Kansas City, MO. She attended the University of Iowa, but, at the tender age of 19, returned to Kansas City after the death of her father, taking a job at the local radio station where she hosted the popular broadcast, Private Smiles, for servicemen during World War II. (The show later earned her a Woman of the Year award from the USO, and one of Sonny’s horses was named Pvt. Smiles in her honor.) In 1948, Marylou wed her first husband, Frank Hosford, heir to the John Deere tractor fortune. The couple had four children—Marian Louise, Frank, Henry and Heather—but divorced, leaving Marylou to raise them by herself. “Marylou was beautiful,” says 88-year-old Fred Ryan, who was Superintendent of Service at The Gideon Putnam when he first met her in ’58. “I had just brought their luggage up to their suite, and I remember that she was wearing her blonde hair on top of her head,” he tells me. “I remember her being so friendly—she told me about her background and her children.” When Sonny was married to his third wife, Eleanor Searle, Ryan tells me that he worked as a bartender and waiter at Cady Hill. “The next season, when I showed up for a party, Marylou remembered me from her visit at the Gideon Putnam hotel,” says Ryan. “From that day on, every time I’d see her at the track, she’d nod and smile at me.”

During a stint in New York City pursuing an acting career, Marylou befriended actress Audrey Hepburn and author Truman Capote, a Yaddo fellow who’s said to have used her and three others as a composite for the star of his Breakfast At Tiffany’s novella, Holly Golightly (whom, ironically, Hepburn would later portray on the silver screen). With her acting career gaining steam, the then Marylou Hosford—at the time, separated from Frank—met Sonny at a supper club in Phoenix, and he hired her to star with Brandon de Wilde and Lee Marvin in his film The Missouri Traveler, which hit the big screen in 1958. Marylou then traveled to Sonny’s 100,000-acre Adirondack estate—land that his grandfather consolidated for $1.50 an acre—to act in another film, The Healing Woods. Sparks flew between Marylou and Sonny, and the couple fell in love. Needless to say, the film never saw the light of day. “Sonny said the reason he never made the picture is that he married me instead, and he didn’t want his wife to be a movie star!” Marylou has said of the time. Not skipping a beat, Sonny said, “I think I chose correctly.”

Marylou and Sonny honeymooned in far-flung Flin Flon, Manitoba, headquarters of the Hudson Bay Mining & Smelting Company, which he’d founded. “We traveled three days and three nights by dogsled,” Sonny said. “It was 60 below.” They lived for a year with Marylou’s four children at Camp Deerland in Long Lake, NY, then moved to Lexington to settle on the Whitney family’s 1000-acre horse farm. (Sonny and Marylou had one child of their own, Cornelia, in 1959.) Sonny inherited his father’s racing stable, as well as his grandfather’s land, and named one of their broodmares Hush Dear, in Marylou’s honor. (It was one of his pet names for her, after she told him that saying “shut up” was too harsh.) As age 90 approached, Sonny told me: “I’m out of pictures, out of horses, out of mining.” He’d even considered selling Cady Hill, but Marylou had loved the old stagecoach house too much to give it up.

In 1992, five years after our first encounter, Sonny died at age 93, and he’s buried at Greenridge Cemetery in Saratoga, the town he considered his real home—of his nine residences at the time. Three years later, the widowed Marylou ventured to the South Pole on an expedition. Then 71, Marylou fell for 32-year-old John Hendrickson, a former tennis champion and aide to Alaska Governor Walter Hickel. (The two had clearly been seeing each other beforehand, as she confirmed during the ’96 Saratoga racetrack meet that she would be marrying him the following year.) John proposed to Marylou, in style, at Buckingham Palace—at a reception for Prince Philip, who joked that he wasn’t going to pay for their impending nuptials. (He didn’t.) Governor Hickel presided over their marriage in ’97, and the couple later named a horse in his honor. Irreverent and smart, John was the perfect complement to Marylou, and proved gentle and supportive after her stroke in 2006, following back surgery. John has always joked about their 39-year age difference. With his irreverence at full tilt, he raised more than a few eyebrows at the Saratoga Springs Rotary Club when he announced, “We’re expecting.” I was relieved to learn that they’d just bought a new puppy.

While I could fill an entire issue of saratoga living listing Marylou’s charities, honors and philanthropic work—she’s been especially generous to Saratoga Hospital over the years—it’s always at her annual Opening Day luncheon at the track when she and her beloved city seem to come alive, with Marylou presiding as its Grande Dame over a Who’s-Who of friends, politicians and local celebrities. Just like any international star, Marylou has a fan base—especially one in her adopted hometown. At her über-popular Whitney Gala, which came to an end in 2012, I watched throngs of well-wishers gather outside the Canfield Casino, saying hello to her as if only a few weeks had passed, saving the party favors she threw out into the crowd. Marylou fans will often paste tiny photos of her with plastic horses and fences to their hats for the track’s annual contest. She’s as close to Saratoga royalty as there’s ever been.

Of course, Marylou’s story has proven more than just an engrossing tale of historical intrigue from the upper echelons of society—a real-life Great Gatsby, without the unhappy ending. Her story’s also about saving Saratoga and its greatest asset, the racetrack, which hits closest to home for us Saratogians. But where to start? How about Pulitzer Prize-winning sportswriter Walter “Red” Smith’s “directions” to Saratoga: “From New York City you drive north for about 175 miles, turn left on Union Avenue and go back 100 years.” Whitneys and Vanderbilts, scions of racing and society, have been coming to Saratoga since the days of John Morrissey, the bare-knuckle-boxer-turned-Congressman, who first brought Thoroughbred racing here in 1863. The families have been entwined with the fate of Saratoga ever since, and have been part of its trajectory forward after both town and track were threatened time and again with almost certain demise. Railroad baron Cornelius Vanderbilt, Sonny’s namesake, and William Travers were among the track’s founders. Beset by corruption and shut down for the 1896 meet under Gottfried Walbaum, it was Sonny’s grandfather, William C. Whitney, Secretary of the Navy under President Grover Cleveland and a descendant of Eli Whitney of cotton gin fame, who bought the track in 1901 and remodeled it.

Generations of Whitneys and their spouses gradually helped bring the track back, making it into the powerhouse it is today. Sonny’s C.V. Whitney Racing Stable bred or raised more than 450 stakes winners at its Lexington farm alone. Sonny began dispersing his family’s racing stock in his 80s, so Marylou would be free to travel and not have to bother with the business—a historically male-dominated one. After Sonny’s death in ’92, Marylou ended up using a chunk of his estimated $100 million estate to buy back the Whitney broodmares for a stable of her own. She searched for and bought Dear Birdie, a foal by her nickname-sake Hush Dear, for $50,000, just before the mare went up for auction at the Keeneland yearling sale. Marylou’s fledgling Blue Goose Stable—I remember her blue cushions with a blue goose on the five wooden chairs in her clubhouse box near the finish line, at the track—soon evolved into Marylou Whitney Stables. At Marylou’s Opening Day luncheon in 2001, her husband John told me he had high hopes for the new venture. (Ian Wilkes is its trainer today; Nick Zito held the position back then.) “We have 25 two-year-olds in training,” said John. “With Nick’s talent and Marylou’s money, we should have some luck.” As of July 2018, in 1431 starts, Marylou Whitney Stables has 183 wins, 180 places and 191 shows. If you were at Saratoga last summer, you’d have seen the Whitney Stables’ Quick Quick Quick come in second on August 6 and log a win on August 27. The Stables will no doubt have contenders at this year’s Saratoga meet, and, as always, Marylou and John will be there to present the trophy at the $1.2 million Whitney Handicap on August 4, a race named in her family’s honor—and the second richest race at the meet (just behind the Travers).

Now, if a horse has a bird in its name, odds are good it’s a Dear Birdie foal. Marylou, a familiar face in the foaling shed, was there when Birdstone was born. (Birdstone, half sister Bird Town and their mother, Dear Birdie, reportedly recognize Marylou’s voice and look for her in the barn.)

In 2004 Birdstone smashed the hopes of Triple Crown contender, Smarty Jones, at the Belmont Stakes. Marylou seemed more upset than Smarty Jones’ owners, Roy and Patricia Chapman. “I’m sorry we beat you,” she told Mrs. Chapman, who graciously said the better horse had won. Her husband, John, called Birdstone “the little horse who could.” Fresh off his spoiler-maker victory at Belmont, Birdstone came to Saratoga and won the Travers, crossing the finish line as the dark sky opened with apocalyptic thunder, lightning and pelting rain. Standing in the Winner’s Circle with other reporters and photographers, I saw Marylou beaming, but soaked—electric and energized. The successful bird-named bloodline would continue its winning ways, with Birdstone’s daughter, Stone Legacy, coming in second in The Kentucky Oaks in 2009. That same year, Birdstone’s colts Mine That Bird and Summer Bird won the Derby and Belmont, respectively.

In 2010, Marylou was honored with The Eclipse Award of Merit “for a lifetime of outstanding achievement in Thoroughbred racing.” I talked with Stella F. Thayer, President-Treasurer of the Tampa Bay Downs racecourse, who first came to Saratoga in the 1970s with her husband. (She’s also served as the President of Saratoga’s racing museum.) At that point, Saratoga Race Course had reached a nadir, and a proposal had been made to shutter it. “They wanted to close the racetrack at the time,” says Thayer. “Thank God they didn’t do it. Now it’s the most popular [racing] venue [in the country].” Speaking of the Whitneys, Thayer tells me: “Marylou does things with enthusiasm, grace and dazzle,” having supported countless charities and the racing museum, first with Sonny, and then with John. (Marylou’s husband is the current President of the racing museum, by the way.) “They’ve done so much for Saratoga, both past and present, through thick and thin.”

Certainly, Governor Nelson Rockefeller’s construction of the Northway, which reached Saratoga in 1963, and the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC), which he supported, in 1966, were keys to the city’s resurgence. Also, the latter wouldn’t have been possible without Marylou and Sonny’s generosity; they were among the founders of SPAC and helped finance the racing museum and the National Museum of Dance, which has a Hall of Fame that bears their names. But the city and the track’s turnaround were still a long time coming in the 1970s. One positive result of the city’s neglect? The historic racetrack wasn’t torn down or redeveloped, but rather, stayed the way it was, frozen in time. Oversized wooden Victorian structures—old-fashioned firetraps with spires, uneven floors, constricted Clubhouse boxes with creaky chairs—certainly would’ve been replaced if the money were there. Surprisingly, it wouldn’t be until the 1980s that Saratoga Race Course finally started beating out its Downstate cousins, Belmont Park and Aqueduct Racetrack, on an annual basis. Saratoga attendance rates soared in 1983, and the lead soon widened. “Saratoga was bucking the trend when it took off in the 1980s and 1990s,” Gary McKeon, NYRA President from 1982 to 1994, has said. “No one else was growing, [and] Saratoga took off like a rocket.” As the Saratoga meet was extended from 24 days in 1962, to 30 in 1991, to 34 in 1994, to 36 in 1997, to 40 in 2010, where it has stayed, the upward trend continued.

By 2017, Saratoga had a total paid attendance of 1,117,838 for the meet. Saratoga’s handle for all-source wagering hit a record-breaking $676,709,490. Marylou didn’t earn her honorary title, “Savior of Saratoga,” for standing by idle. That said, she and Sonny, (and later John) had a lot of help along the way: Their good friends, the late Ed Lewi, famed public relations executive, and his wife, Maureen, come to mind. In the late ’70s, LA County’s Santa Anita Park and NYRA were the only racetrack associations to have marketing departments. NYRA reached out to Ed Lewi Associates for help. “Both the track and the city were very depressed when we first came here in the ’70s,” says Maureen Lewi, Co-owner of the firm, which also did PR for SPAC, the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid and Coca Cola, among others. “Marylou was game for all of Ed’s ideas to promote Saratoga. Saratoga became so ingrained in our hearts. It became our (Sonny, Marylou, Ed and my) mission in life to catapult Saratoga to fame, and Marylou was the star. The media found her fascinating.”

Ed came up with the phrase “the August place to be”—which Marylou tweaked to “the summer place to be,” when racing was extended into July. The Lewis’ plan was simple: “to depict Saratoga as an experience; show that it was more than a wonderful, historic racetrack; it was a place for fun; a place to be seen,” Maureen says. “NBC Nightly News came to spend two days shooting a racetrack story and stayed for almost a week after they met Marylou,” she tells me. Vanity Fair, New York magazine and other national publications caught on and did stories, as did East Coast newspapers, and broadcast and cable TV networks. “Nothing was too much for Marylou to do for her beloved Saratoga. She invited celebrities to Cady Hill, hosted a grand ball, dazzled the crowds at myriad events and fundraisers and mingled with all the fans at the track. She rode in carriages, in a hot air balloon, on the back of an elephant and in Greta Garbo’s Duesenberg—all to put the spotlight on Saratoga,” Maureen says. “She certainly earned her title ‘Queen of Saratoga.’”

When Marylou was inducted into the Walk Of Fame at the track in August 2015, everyone from Hall of Fame jockeys Angel Cordero, Jr. and Jerry Bailey to longtime track announcer Tom Durkin and her former horse trainer Nick Zito, paid tribute to her. “You hear so much about people, and some of it is built up,” Zito said at the event. “This is the real deal. There’s no hype. There’s no build-up. Marylou Whitney is a pillar of the sport of racing, a pillar of our community in Saratoga and one of the great ladies that I’ve met in my entire life.” NYRA CEO and President Chris Kay says: “Her generosity is unparalleled. I’ve spoken to many people in Saratoga Springs. They all tell me the same thing. Marylou Whitney saved this town since the moment she arrived nearly seven decades ago.” That she did. And how.

I remember the first time I saw Irad Ortiz, Jr., when he wasn’t on the back of a horse. It was opening weekend of the 2011 Saratoga Race Course meet, and the New York Race Track Chaplaincy was holding a fundraiser at the Saratoga Strike Zone on Ballston Avenue. Irad was there with his agent at the time, not so much to show off his bowling skills, but to show his face and support the cause, just two months after he’d begun riding in New York. He looked impossibly small and young; he was 18 years old, and any bouncer on Caroline Street would’ve laughed if he’d attempted entry at a local watering hole. He was quiet, too; not entirely comfortable speaking English, the Puerto Rico native was respectful and amiable, communicating often with the warmth of a smile that’s no less genuine today, as he’s at the top of the New York jockey colony, than it was then, when he was an apprentice, or, as it’s known around the track, a bug. Ortiz had made his New York debut earlier that year at Aqueduct Racetrack on April 22, finishing fifth on a horse named Straddler in a low-level claiming race. He then returned to riding at Hipódromo Camarero in Canóvanas, Puerto Rico, before coming back to New York in May to ride full-time at Belmont Park. At first, he rode only a few races a day—sometimes just a single one—but it didn’t take him long to get his first win: That came on May 18, 2011, four days after he set up shop there, on his fourth mount, Grande Roja.

By the following spring, José Ortiz had followed his older brother—José’s 14 months younger—north from Puerto Rico, arriving at the end of the Aqueduct winter meet. He won with his first mount in North America, Corofin, on March 21 there. Thus began the brotherly rivalry. Since then, the brothers have racked up a combined 3500 wins, 22 riding titles, 2 Belmont Stakes wins and 5 Breeders’ Cup victories, along with spotless reputations. At ages 24 and 25, the Ortizes are poised to inherit the mantle of Hall of Fame riders such as Angel Cordero, Jr. and John Velazquez. So why doesn’t anybody outside the Thoroughbred racing niche know their names?

They should be a marketer’s dream come true. They’re brothers who’ve come to the US to fulfill the American Dream, succeeding by dint of an unbeatable trifecta of character, effort and talent. It’s impossible to find anyone on the New York backstretches who has a bad word to say about them. They’re family men, close to their parents, with long-term partners and soon, each will have a couple of kids (Taylor Rice, also a jockey and José’s wife, is expecting their second child later this year). Irad met his partner, Meliza Betancourt, seven years ago while he was in jockey school in Puerto Rico, making them the racetrack equivalent of high school sweethearts. They have two daughters.

Ordinarily, jockeys begin their careers on lower-level tracks, where they’re more likely to get rides and the experience and education that comes with them. Irad came straight to New York, and, predictably, family played a major role in that. His grandfather, who, like one of their uncles, was also a jockey, worked the New York tracks. So, Irad came to where he had family. Now the Ortizes’ parents are both here, their father working in one of the barns at Belmont. Perhaps as a direct result of their success, most of José and Irad’s family are on the US mainland with them and were, fortunately, largely unaffected when Hurricane Maria hit last fall. Of a recent visit to their native island, Irad said, soberly, “It was very different after the hurricane. The trees—they were all down. It was really sad.”

When Serena and Venus Williams play each other, no matter the stature of the tournament, it’s a major tennis event. When Peyton and Eli Manning faced off on the football field, the interfamily rivalry was the main media story. Consider, then, how often the Ortiz brothers head into the starting gate for the same race—and how little the national spotlight is trained on them. For example, on the day of the Belmont Stakes—the biggest day in New York racing and one with the added bonus of a Triple Crown potentially falling—both had mounts in 9 of the 13 races on the card. Irad got bragging rights that day, with two wins; José had to settle for a trio of second-place finishes, including a stunning one in the Belmont Stakes aboard Gronkowski, who nearly beat out eventual Triple Crown winner Justify. His brother finished right behind him in third place on Hofburg. As of mid-June, the brothers are also neck and neck in the national jockeys’ standings, with José just getting the better of his brother, leading by less than $1 million in purse earnings. They are, in more ways than one, inseparable.

Part of the story of the Ortiz brothers is that, rather like Serena and Venus, the younger sibling has—pardon the pun—eclipsed the elder one. In 2016, José led all North American jockeys in wins with 1563; his brother was right behind him with 1504. In 2017, José won the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Jockey, and he acknowledged that he and his brother have been known to get into arguments after they’ve raced against each other. “Nothing serious,” José said with a smile. “Right now, he’s No.1 in New York. I want to win and I don’t want to be mad when he wins. I’m really proud of him. I want him to win the Eclipse Award this year.” Then he corrects himself—sort of. “I want to win it, but I want him to be in the mix,” he says. “I’m really proud and happy for him.”

José’s used to being interviewed, and saying the right thing to the media is part of the early training of any elite athlete, but it’s nearly impossible to be cynical around either brother. Talking about the highlights of his career, José talks frankly about this year’s Preakness, after which trainer Chad Brown spoke heatedly, openly critical of José’s ride on fourth-place finisher Good Magic. “I wish I could take that back,” says José, more than a touch of the politic in his comment, given that his immediate post-race remarks suggested that the horse hadn’t run to expectations. “I didn’t want to be where I was. It wasn’t the plan.” He does acknowledge Brown’s criticism, though. “It’s hard when trainers criticize, but we understand,” he says. “They work as hard as we do, and they want to win, and [running on the lead] wasn’t the plan. I’m still riding for him, and that means a lot to me. Turn the page and keep going.”

Brown—whose name at this time of year is unfailingly followed by, “from nearby Mechanicville”—was also responsible for putting Irad on one of the best horses he’s ever ridden, the champion Lady Eli. As obstreperous as she is talented, she didn’t need a jockey to coax the best out of her. “She needed to be calm and collected, to have someone that she trusted on her back,” says Brown. “I thought she and Irad would be a good match.” And he was right: Irad was in the saddle for all 14 of her lifetime races, resulting in 10 wins and 3 runner-up finishes. It’s also clear that Brown has mutual respect for the Ortiz brothers and what they’re accomplishing in horse racing. “They have a great appreciation for the horse, no matter what level it is,” says Brown. “They pet the horses, they try to get constructive feedback, they take their time bringing the horses back after a race. They put a lot of effort into trying to get along with a horse. They’re real horsemen.”

With the Belmont Stakes behind them, the Ortizes are looking ahead to Saratoga, where the pace both on and off the track accelerates, and where the demands on their time increase significantly. At Belmont, they ride five days a week; at Saratoga, it’s six, and the brothers seldom get a morning off. While during the spring and early summer, they might head to Belmont a couple of mornings a week, at Saratoga they’re out every morning except Tuesday (dark day at the track)—and sometimes even that day too. They’re familiar faces on the backstretch, hanging out and driving around in golf carts, with or without their agents.

Last summer, José’s daughter, Leilani, was an infant, adding a whole other dimension to the always-demanding summer meet. “It was a little rough in the beginning,” he says. “She woke up a lot, and even though Taylor was the one feeding her, I still woke up when I heard the baby. And the mornings are so busy—you hardly ever get both a Tuesday morning and afternoon off. There are so many horses up there, and trainers need us.” Like any successful athlete, José is aware of his body’s limitations—and what he needs to do to power through. “I’m human, I get tired,” he says. “It’s such a short meet, but you have to be on your toes. You can’t give anyone else an advantage. I’ve been the leading rider two years in a row, and I want to keep that title.”

His brother might have something to say about that. “I want to win the standings again,” says Irad. “That’s the goal.” He points to famous jockeys, such as Cordero, Jr., Velazquez and Edgar Prado, as the riders he’s learned the most from; Cordero won 14 Saratoga titles, Velazquez 5 and Prado 1. When José joined him in New York, he passed on what he sees now as his limited wisdom. “I got here a year before José, so I had some experience,” Irad says. “Now, looking back, I know I was way behind. But we both learned more and more, and now I don’t have to teach him anything.” José begs to differ. “I learned everything I know from him,” he says. “If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be here. I was always chasing him, and I wanted to be just like him. Now we’re about even.”

Another trainer who has a history with, and mounds of respect for, the Ortiz brothers is seven-time Eclipse winner for Outstanding Trainer Todd Pletcher, who’s wreaked havoc at Saratoga, having won 13 titles there (including runs from 2002-06 and 2010-15). “They’re both willing to listen and trying to improve all the time,” says Pletcher, on whose horse Tapwrit José won the 2017 Belmont Stakes. “They’re assets to the business.”

In addition to the tough schedule on the racetrack, jockeys at Saratoga are also in high demand for the season’s many charity events, many of which support jockeys and other backstretch employees. One annual highlight is the jockeys versus trainers basketball game to benefit the New York Racetrack Chaplaincy, and while the Ortiz brothers might be small, they’re quick and have serious game. “I like to play,” says José. “I learned in Puerto Rico. I had knee surgery in December, so I don’t know if I can play as hard this year.” (That sound you just heard? The trainers’ collective sigh of relief.)

If it’s not entirely obvious at this point, the Ortiz brothers are top-level riders. They’re attentive fathers, loving partners, mature and professional. They love horses. They’re selfless and generous with their time. They don’t let their professional rivalry get in the way of their family relationship. The Ortizes share every trait that the Williams sisters or Manning brothers have throughout their career in the white-hot spotlight of the sports world. Pletcher says: “They’re not up-and-coming; it’s no secret that they’ve arrived.”

It’s no big secret within the racing community, for sure. But even those of us who love horse racing have to admit that it’s a small community, that our biggest stars could walk down Broadway in Manhattan—or even along Broadway on a busy summer night in Saratoga—with no concern about being recognized. Whether you’re the Oritz brothers or a Hall of Fame jockey, racing just never hit the American mainstream like baseball or football—or even tennis.

Fifteen years ago, jockey Gary Stevens made his movie debut in Seabiscuit, becoming one of the very few racing figures to achieve household name status as a result of the movie’s popularity and Oscar buzz; he also starred in the short-lived HBO series Luck. But he’s an anomaly in this great sport of racing. That said, the prevalence of Latino jockeys like the Ortiz brothers and the prevalence of Hispanic workers on the backstretch creates a stark contrast with the rest of the sport. Spanish is ubiquitous on the backstretch, but not so much in clubhouses and advertising. If José and Irad were athletes in a more popular sport—say, baseball or football—we’d likely see them featured more prominently in advertising. Their rivalry would be emphasized and encouraged. Their senses of humor and love of family and kindness to animals would be part of more national broadcasts. While the Ortiz brothers were the focus of a major feature in The New Yorker late last year, you’ll be hard-pressed to find any other national media outlets—with the exception of those that have a racing focus—covering the Ortiz brothers’ successes in any demonstrable way.

Look, here’s the bottom line: I can think of no better exemplars of sport and character than Irad and José Ortiz. Still in their mid-twenties, the talented brothers figure to be around for at least a couple more decades, giving the rest of the world plenty of time to discover them. I sure hope they do, because they’re both something truly special and, yes, the very embodiment of that still elusive American Dream.