Welcome to the Calendar at saratogaliving.com—our expertly curated list of the top events, live music, readings, workshops and everything else in between hitting the Capital Region on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. As always, the Calendar will be updated every Thursday, so that you’ll have a jump on your weekend plans. You’ll never have to ask “What’s going on in Saratoga?” ever again. Today’s calendar is a special Kentucky Derby Day edition.
Derby Day In Saratoga – Saturday, May 5
This weekend brings all the feels—and makes me want to crank the Rolling Stones’ “Dead Flowers” loud while I drive down Broadway in Saratoga with my windows rolled down. You know, for the kicker line: “Oh, when you’re sitting in back in your rose-pink Cadillac, making bets on Kentucky Derby Day.” Yes, Saturday marks the 144th running of the fabled “Run for the Roses,” and given that we’re a horse town, we need to jump on the bandwagon and watch the race, no matter what. Where to watch it is an altogether different question. There are more than a few options in town (see below).
Not to mention the fact that it’ll also be Cinco de Mayo, so it’s clear that Saratogians—and anyone else who wants to join in—will have quite a few options to party down this weekend.
The National Racing Museum and Hall of Fame is throwing its annual Derby Day bash, with samplings of local beers and spirits and Kentucky-inspired dishes from local restaurants. Guests are encouraged to “dress to impress.”
The Saratoga Casino and Hotel has its own Derby party going down, with tables and lounge reservations coming in at $16 a pop at the Vapor Night Club. Not to mention that you can gamble while you gamble!
The Saratoga National golf course has its own soirée for Derby Day, which costs $30/person and features live music by Grand Central Station.
R&R Kitchen + Bar at 43 Phila Street has drink specials from 1pm to 7pm on Derby Day.
2 West Bar & Grille is throwing its own hybrid Derby/Cinco de Mayo extravaganza. Make sure you download that Uber app!
The Lodge also has its own “And They’re Off” Derby event from 4pm to 8pm, which sponsors Saratoga Sponsor-A-Scholar.
There’s also saratoga living neighbor Cantina, where I’m sure they’ll be celebrating Cinco de Mayo all day. There’s a TV at the bar, so my guess is they’ll also be showing the Derby.
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Friday, May 4
“The Ambassador of Soul,” Ellis Hall – 8pm at Caffè Lena – 47 Phila St., Saratoga Springs
Lucid with Funky Dawgz Brass Band, Adrian Aardvark – 63a Putnam Place, Saratoga Springs
Saturday, May 5
Cars and Coffee – 8am to 10am at the Saratoga Auto Museum – 110 Avenue of the Pines, Saratoga Springs
Need a respite from the horses or Caroline Street this summer—or just a fun diversion after a tiring workday? Saratoga Strike Zone has you covered with, of course, its bowling lanes, a full redemption arcade, Ballocity ball pit and bumper cars. We recently had a chance to talk with Saratoga Strike Zone’s proprietor, Rich Sheldon, about his local staple, and what it’s like working in the entertainment business.
How did you get your start in the business?
I started in the bowling business more than 30 years ago in Burlington, VT. It was a part-time job to assist with college tuition. I ended up staying with that corporation for 20 years and was relocated to New York by them. Saratoga is in the area I was responsible for, and when they decided to pass on it, I continued the conversations, and as they say, the rest is history. I’ve been at Saratoga Strike Zone for just over 10 years now.
What makes Saratoga Springs such a great place to run a business?
I liked Burlington, but I love Saratoga. The community has been very supportive. It has a “safe small town” feel, yet everything to offer. There are resources readily available to small business operators to assist with all aspects of running their business.
What sets Saratoga Strike Zone apart from the other like-minded businesses in the Capital Region?
There are a lot of businesses vying for the recreational dollar, but when it comes to bowling, there’s no comparison. Most bowling centers around are just bowling centers, but we are a family entertainment facility. We offer so much more than just bowling. We have bumper cars, a Ballocity ball pit, redemption arcade, six-lane VIP suite and a complete sports pub.
What’s your favorite part of running Saratoga Strike Zone?
It always has been, and I suspect it always will be, seeing the smiles on everyone’s faces and listening to their unique stories.
What impact do you hope your business has on the Saratoga community?
I hope the community is as proud of our efforts as we are to part of it. I hope they recommend us unconditionally!
On Saturday, April 28, the American Cancer Society (ACS) held its annual Gala of Hope, raising money and awareness of ACS’ mission, at the Hall of Springs in Saratoga Springs. The black-tie affair was nothing short of a major success, with Anthony Ianniello’s trio of entities—Ianniello Anderson, saratoga living and Putnam Place—acting as presenting sponsors for the night’s soirée. Brit Drahos and Bill Perry hosted the Starcam on the red carpet, while the event itself was orchestrated by ACS’ Lizzie Hunter. The night’s schedule included featuring special honoree, Jeanne Walsh, a live auction, surf-and-turf sit-down meal and busy dance floor, with tunes provided by local favorites Soul Session. The most moving part of evening came when the house lights were turned off, and people who had been affected by cancer were asked to raise glow sticks, illuminating the darkened room. It was a stark reminder that the fight against cancer is an ongoing battle. Take a look at some highlights from the evening in the accompanying photo gallery.
Champagne and raspberries, oodles of red roses and Western civilization’s brightest dance stars—Fred Astaire, Michael Jackson, Shirley Temple, Tina Turner and many more—busting a move on five flashing video screens. And is that an autographed photo of Ann-Margret over the bar? Yes, please. It was quite the scene Friday night at the National Museum of Dance: a private party, red carpet event, for a special group of patrons.
The 79-year-old Tommy Tune, Broadway’s legendary song-and-dance man with 10 Tony Awards (acting, choreography, directing and lifetime achievement) was in Saratoga Springs to perform in the Mr. & Mrs. Ronald A. Riggi Theater at the museum. Tune’s show was a “thank you” for donors in the Please Take Your Seat campaign. For $2,000, your name was placed on one of the 45 bright-red seats in the black-box theater. Next to a larger-than-life tribute to Chita Rivera, I cornered Board President Michele Riggi. Asked for three words to describe Mr. Tune, she said, “Tall, tapping, Texan.”
I knew about Tune, but only from TV and the movies. He danced on The Dean Martin Show and in the 1969 movie Hello, Dolly! with Barbra Streisand. In 1971, he and English super model Twiggy starred in the movie The Boy Friend. Back then, teen girls like me were crazy for Twiggy. When I quizzed two friends who really know Tune’s work, and told them that I was soon to see the six-foot six-inch entertainer, they were envious. “For someone so tall, it’s amazing he’s so light on his feet. And he’s the picture of gentlemanliness,” one friend said. “Wow…he’s charming,” said the other. “He’s got the greatest smile.”
At the dance museum, too, the guests were bubbling with anticipation. Many had seen him on Broadway. One recalled seeing her first Tune show years ago, when she was 18.
Michele, in a long, slim black lace dress, told me that the 1983 musical My One and Only, starring Tune and Twiggy, was her favorite show. She also revealed that on Friday morning, hours before the show, Tune was at her home on North Broadway, posing for a picture while holding two of her Chihuahuas, named Tommy and Tune. “The year he was inducted, in 2009, we named them after him, in his honor.”
After an hour of hobnobbing, the patrons filed into the theater and found their named seats. Then the lights dimmed, and the room fell silent. Walking on to the stage, more than half a century after his first performance, the willowy Tune was the embodiment of elegance and grace, a link to a golden and perhaps more gentile era of entertainment. And in a black tuxedo and sparkly vest, with silver tap shoes, flowing silver hair and perfect posture, he’s movie-star handsome. Tune sang, then tapped, with mike in one hand, to music from a grand piano commanded by the gifted Michael Biagi, Tune’s accompanist for 47 of his 50 years on stage. Effortless and smooth, Tune’s 30-minute medley featured the jazz standard “Let’s Get Lost”; “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head”; the Gershwin brothers’ “You Can’t Take That Away From Me”; another Gershwin number, “I’ve Got Rhythm”; and “The Way You look Tonight,” a tune that Astaire sang to Ginger Rogers in 1936.
Tune’s tapping was expert but not too vigorous, as he didn’t venture far from the center of the stage. And for good reason. The stage, only 18.6 by 11.6 feet, was not designed for dancing. Since it was dreamed up by Michele and built in 2014 in an old storage space, the stage has been a venue for film, poetry and theater. “It’s another venue for children to act, sing, perform in front of a live audience,” Michele told the audience before the show.
“It’s a perfect theater. It’s a jewel,” Tune said, beaming that warm smile onto the audience.
At one point, Tune paused, leaned his body theatrically against a pillar, and paid homage to his female dance partners: Chita, Tina Turner, Carol Channing, Streisand, Lauren Bacall, Joan Rivers, Phyllis Diller and Twiggy. “And Drew Barrymore, when she was 11 years old,” he said. Tune remembered how the theater critics were ready to pounce on My One and Only, because of Twiggy’s lack of acting experience, but the show turned out to be a huge hit. “We made a lot of people happy,” he said. And so it was on Friday night.
After the show, hungry for more Tune, I revisited the museum’s Hall of Fame. When he was inducted, he gifted more than a dozen pairs of his size 13 boots and shoes to the museum. In a large glass case, you can see the black tap shoes that Gregory Hines gave him and the white clogs he wore in Seesaw, his first Tony-winning show. My favorite pair? Tall red leather cowboy boots made in his hometown of Wichita Falls, Texas. The next time you’re in the Riggi Theater, check out those gold name plates on the armrests. In the first row, you’ll find Marylou Whitney and John Hendrickson. Tommy Tune has a front row seat, too, between Michele and Ron.
Feel bad that you missed the talented Tune? No worries. “Tommy Tune is a great friend of the National Museum of Dance,” says Director Laura DiRado. “He attended our annual gala here at the museum last summer.” And Michele is absolutely certain that he’ll be visiting Saratoga Springs again soon. “He comes to town a lot,” she says. “He’s one of my besties.”
Shelly Walker’s award-winning interior design firm, Finishing Touches Home Decor, Inc., was more than two decades in the making—the result of her desire to bring the best-of-the-best in home decor to Saratoga Springs and the greater Capital Region. “I’ve had an interior design business for more than 20 years,” says Walker. “I had a few different locations for my design studio, but I always wanted a store of my own, so in 2015 we opened Finishing Touches.” Since then, the Wilton-based Finishing Touches has won numerous interior design awards at the Saratoga Builders Association Showcase of Homes and the Capital Region Builders & Remodelers Association Parade of Homes, and has been featured on TLC’s Trading Spaces. Why open a business in the Saratoga area? For one, Walker lives nearby, so opening a store close to home made sense. But it’s also because of the mystique of the town. “Saratoga’s just a beautiful area, full of history and charm,” she says.
Located just a quarter mile off of exit 16, with ample parking, Finishing Touches is a convenient stop on or off the Northway. But Finishing Touches doesn’t serve only the Saratoga area; it’s also perfectly positioned to handle clients in the Lake George and Albany areas, and all the way up to the Adirondacks. “We can design houses in various styles—from refined rustic to Saratoga glam and everything in between,” says Walker. “Our intention is to create a beautiful atmosphere for people to go home to, so they can relax after a long day.”
Another example of Finishing Touches’ interior design work. (Finishing Touches)
For those potential customers wondering about Finishing Touches’ interior design savvy, one need not look further than the business’ own unique home decor/design shop. It’s headquartered in a historic church, which Walker and her team gutted and worked tirelessly on refurbishing and remodeling. It has since won a historical society award, and is open for visits by tourists and clients alike. “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” says Walker. “On the outside, it may just look like a little, old church, but on the inside, we’re doing great things!” In April, the Finishing Touches shop was part of the historic site tour—and the business has a model condominium on display starting in May, which will also be on the Saratoga Showcase of Homes tour in September, and a model house on the Parade of Homes Tour June 2-3 and June 9-10. (A second model house will be included on the Saratoga Showcase as well.) Finishing Touches also flips houses, buying, repairing and remodeling them before putting them back on the market. The way Walker sees it, “We’re beautifying neighborhoods one house at a time.” (In addition to community building, Finishing Touches will be hosting some fun events at the store this summer to benefit local charities, so stay tuned for those.)
Walker’s aware that Finishing Touches has stiff competition in the area from large chain stores, such as Home Goods, Marshalls and TJ Maxx, but she believes her firm can bring something to the table that they can’t: locally curated and sourced products. “What people don’t know is that we carry local, handmade, one-of-a-kind items from local craftsman, including pottery, candles, honey, tea, pillows and furniture. If anyone is looking for a specific piece of furniture and just can’t find it, we can have it made for them,” says Walker. “You’re not going to get that from big-box stores.”
Above all, Walker really enjoys what she does—and knows that Finishing Touches is more than just an as-advertised business. “We love helping clients create their dream home,” says Walker. “We provide an extensive array of services—from paint color selection to designing a brand-new home.” (Find a complete list of services on their website.) That, and “we are a down-to-earth, friendly, local store contributing to our local economy,” says Walker.
OK, folks, all the barbershop talk is about horses right now! Since the opening of the Oklahoma track, and the Kentucky Derby being only a short time away, everyone wants to talk horses. Well, at Woody’s Barbershop, owners, trainers, trackmen, jockeys and everyone involved in the racing industry like to share an opinion or two while getting their haircut. That said, being quite the horse handicapper myself—at least in my own mind—I’ll share the knowledge I’ve gained from various sources, including my past handicapping knowledge, and the knowledge passed down by my grandfather and father, and give you a few picks for the biggest race until the Saratoga meet.
Take the following information with a grain of salt—and hopefully, a shot of tequila. And hope for the best, because unlike most years, where there are three or four top contenders who might win and another five or six that wouldn’t surprise anybody if they did, this year, anything could happen! This is a deep and wide-open race, and post position, like always, will be a determining factor. There could be two monsters in here with Justify and Mendelssohn, but then again, I say something like that every year.
Below, there’s no particular order, exactly, but these are the horses I’ll be looking at and the reasons why I think they’re poised to win. As always, odds the day of the race will play a factor in my final betting decisions, as will the day’s track conditions and biases. Not to mention those post positions! Take a look:
JUSTIFY
I gotta to tell you, the way he beat Bolt D’oro in the Santa Anita Handicap was visually impressive, but as the likely favorite, odds will be a determining factor for me. If the public gives me 5-1 or more, I’m in! He has the talent, and Bob Baffert in his corner, but I will be hoping his superstar days will not be on Derby Day, because again, I want odds today. Twenty horses means 17 of the losers will have excuses after they lose! My excuse for this horse is that he has only three races (all wins), and all three at the same track with much smaller fields—although if he just gets away too easy, he might be long gone by stretch time.
VINO ROSSO
Hmm. Where should I start? Let’s say that the bumping in the Wood Memorial was a great learning lesson, and it will surely only toughen him up for a 20-horse field. Todd Pletcher is a master with young horses and certainly one of the greatest trainers of all time, and he’ll most definitely have this horse peaked and ready to fire here. It also looked like he actually had more in the tank at the end of that last race, so don’t leave him out of the mix in the Derby. You will get good odds, and his 98 Beyer showed he’s ready for even more improvement with the stretch out. He has the chance to pull off a big upset!
GOOD MAGIC
Don’t be discouraged because of that third-place finish in the fountain of Youth. This horse has so much room to grow, and that race was a jump forward even though he didn’t win. Last year, he got better each time, and this year, I see a very familiar trend, and rest assured, it’s not a coincidence. Good trainers know what to do, and I willing to bet this horse if he’ not stuck in a rotten post position. He has great pedigree and Jose Ortiz on him, which assures you of a great ride. And I think he has a good shot here, though I hope everyone else disagrees, and he goes off at double-digit odds. (Read more about his ownership team here.)
BOLT d’ORO
Don’t disregard this horse because Justify just spanked him in his last race. He was chasing a horse who got out to a lone lead, so coming down the stretch, one would expect him to have gained some ground, right? But if you think about it from a jockey’s perspective, he knew he couldn’t catch him and that this was really only a small prize and not the big one, so maybe he just wound him down and saved him. Now, I watched the races a few times, and he was hard-pressed visually, but I just don’t think he had it that day. So I’m going to toss that race from my mind, and in the Derby, it’ll be hard to believe Justify will just get away easy. If the odds are right, he could have a lot of value, so don’t forget this horse!
MAGNUM MOON
Another Todd Pletcher winner here, Magnum Moon has the talent and breeding to win this race. Visually impressive in his races so far (other than some minor drifting problems), he could stalk the leaders and come from behind to win this race if they press Justify. He really is a horse that I think could win, but I just don’t want to take a short price on him. He’s working sharply for this race, so I’ll be taking the post position and odds into account. But he’ll be in all of my exotics.
MENDELSSOHN
I don’t usually even account for horses shipping from overseas, but this horse could be a monster. His breeding suggest he could win this race for fun. Three wins on three different tracks in three different countries gives me a reason not toss him like usual. In fact, just the trainer and jockey alone make him a contender to win this. Watch out!
OTHER CONTENDERS
AUDIBLE
He could come from anywhere, which is a nice bonus, but then you add in Pletcher and Castellano and he looks even more playable…and with double-digit odds, especially.
HOFBURG
He really has room for improvement, and that’s always a good thing in a race like this. You might even get 30-1 or 40-1 on him along with Bill Mott and Irad Ortiz. Nice!
QUIP
I like his running style in this race, and he has the right to improve and surprise everyone but me. Of course, I’ll need 15-1 or better, but look for him coming down the lane late.
Good luck, and call an Uber when you’re done celebrating!
Welcome to the Calendar at saratogaliving.com—our expertly curated list of the top events, live music, readings, workshops and everything else in between hitting the Capital Region on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. As always, the Calendar will be updated every Thursday, so that you’ll have a jump on your weekend plans. You’ll never have to ask “What’s going on in Saratoga?” ever again.
The Saratoga Invitational – April 28-29, 2018
Row, row, row your boat, quickly down the stream. On Saturday, April 28, the Saratoga Invitational—the Saratoga Rowing Association‘s annual scholastic/non-scholastic rowing competition on Fish Creek (billed as “America’s Largest Sprint Race”)—features 10 lanes of 1500-meter racing and attracts top crews from the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and Midwest.
Aside from the Saratoga Rowing Association’s own squad—which you should obviously be cheering for loudest—there are teams shipping in from Poughkeepsie, Boston, Greenwich and Fordham.
There are races literally scheduled all day, and with afternoon showers in the forecast for Friday and Saturday, be sure to bring along your trusty slicker. Then again, the action should be so intense—and fast-moving—that a little rain won’t dampen the spirits.
Friday, April 27
Collar City Craft Fest – 12pm to 9pm at the Arts Center of the Capital Region – 265 River Street, Troy
Tangwaves – 12pm at the Tang Museum at Skidmore College – 815 North Broadway, Saratoga
I’m constantly torn between my desire to have a house that looks like it’s been designed by Fixer Upper’s Joanna Gaines and my unwillingness to spend money on anything that isn’t essential to my survival. Certainly, my condition isn’t unique to me—who hasn’t watched the show, dismayed because they can’t afford a shiplap accent wall or crown molding? But when I walked into interior designer Sue Waldron’s home in Wilton, my dilemma seemed to fly right out her blue-paneled, sliding barn door and into oblivion. I realized that you don’t need a fortune to get that whitewashed-farmhouse look that’s slowly consuming HGTV viewers’ properties across the land. Waldron’s home is proof.
Waldron runs her own interior design and furniture upcycling business—Sue Waldron Designs—out of her home, and is its lone employee. Her motto is “Thrifted, gifted and found” because, well, that’s how she gets most of her decor. The beautiful white-and-gold buffet in her three-season room? Picked up from the side of the road. The chandelier hanging in her bedroom? Bought at a Facebook garage sale. The patterned textile hanging in an oversized frame in her living room? A $3 scarf from Old Navy. The centerpiece of her kitchen table? A toolbox she found at a yard sale and hand-painted. Her mantel? Rescued from a burn pile. And the two wicker lamps in the living room? From her neighbor’s garbage can. “Nobody’s trash is safe,” Waldron says, as she walks by her father’s discarded vintage card catalogue cabinet, where two leafy plants grow out of open drawers.
Furniture upcycler Sue Waldron in her Wilton home. (Lawrence White)
Though Waldron has been designing her whole life—as a toddler, her mother would wake up to find that she’d moved her crib to a different spot in her room—she didn’t decide to pursue it, professionally, until three years ago. A friend-of-a-friend visited her home and was so impressed by what she saw that she asked Waldron to renovate a room in her own house. That single project ballooned into a yearlong gig, with Waldron redesigning most of the client’s house.
Waldron is also entirely self-taught: “I didn’t go to school for design,” she says. “I’d say it was a hobby, but now it’s kind of my life. It’s what I do. If I’m not helping other people do it, then I’m always doing it here. It’s 24/7.” Though she does design rooms—or entire floors—for clients, more often, Waldron’s focus is on upcycling furniture. The day I stopped by, she was in her kitchen, putting a newly painted, sage-green floor lamp out to dry. “My absolute favorite thing is to use what the owner already has and give it new life,” Waldron says, happily. “I love the end result and I love when people are so excited when I finish a piece.”
I’ve been looking for an ottoman for my apartment for a while now, but haven’t been able to pull the trigger. After seeing Waldron’s home, I have officially moved my search from Amazon to the side of the road. An elegant road, but a road nonetheless.
The sport of horse racing traces its lineage back to the 17th century, and buried deep within its history are countless untold stories. I’ve researched and written many of them since my early days at The Record in Troy and up through my tenure at The Saratogian, where I was Sports Editor and edited the “Pink Sheet.” Eventually, my path led me to the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, where I’ve been since 2010. It’s unfortunate that the story of trainer Mary Hirsch isn’t better known. Talk to any devoted racing fan, especially here in Saratoga Springs, and he or she will regale you on the achievements of legendary trainers such as “Sunny Jim” Fitzsimmons, Allen Jerkens, Woody Stephens and D. Wayne Lukas—all men. Few could tell you much of anything about Hirsch. As the first female trainer to be awarded a license by the Jockey Club and the only woman to train a winner of Saratoga’s most prestigious race, the Travers Stakes, in its 148 runnings, Hirsch deserves more than just a brief footnote in the sport’s storied history. Although her time in the limelight was brief, she was as impactful as many of her male contemporaries.
The running of the Travers dates back to August 2, 1864, the day Saratoga Race Course officially opened for the first time. That day, a mighty colt named Kentucky made the first of his historic appearances at Saratoga, winning the inaugural race for an ownership group that included the race’s namesake, William R. Travers, President of the Saratoga Racing Association. The Travers, which will be contested for the 149th time on August 25, has featured numerous memorable races. The immortal Man o’ War won in dazzling fashion in 1920, setting a track record that stood for 42 years. In one of the most improbable upsets of the century, Jim Dandy dashed through the mud to defeat Triple Crown-winner Gallant Fox at odds of 100-to-1 in 1930. And more recently, the Travers featured a rare dead heat in 2012; a stunning victory by Keen Ice over American Pharoah in 2015; and a record-setting romp from Arrogate the following year.
However, the 1938 Travers was in a league of its own. Eighty years ago, the race was the stage for a trailblazing young trainer named Mary Hirsch, who entered a miracle horse named Thanksgiving. Hirsch was the daughter of legendary trainer Max Hirsch, who by ’38, had already won each race in the Triple Crown series. He went on to sweep the Triple Crown in 1946 with Assault, and finished his extraordinary career with four wins in the Belmont, three in the Kentucky Derby and two in the Preakness en route to the Hall of Fame. As a child, Mary rode jumpers, and her family lived in a cottage on the grounds of Belmont Park for a time. As Time magazine reported in 1935, the young Hirsch “made a habit of keeping trainers’ hours. She got up at dawn to watch the workouts, helped her father’s stablemen feed the horses [and] grew to know as much about such matters as Max Hirsch himself.” And as per The New York Times, her father even trusted his daughter’s judgment enough to “consult with her” on equine matters. Mary had winning ways in her DNA.
Jockey Eddie Arcaro sits atop Thanksgiving during the 1938 Travers Stakes. (Keeneland Library)
In 1933, after several years in apprenticeship to her father, Hirsch formally applied for a license to train racehorses. To say that the application caused a stir in racing circles would be an understatement. “A 20-year-old girl has thrown a bombshell into that exclusive company of 50 gentlemen, most of whom are well past the half-century mark and who guide the destinies of the Jockey Club,” reported the Times. The Club tabled the application, but the following year, Hirsch was granted a license to train in Illinois and Michigan—and by ’35, it was extended to cover essentially all jurisdictions in America and Europe. Upon being granted the groundbreaking license, Hirsch, somewhat prophetically, told Time: “I have a few horses which can run fast. If they escape illness and injury, I think they can win in New York this spring.” In her first year as a trainer, Hirsch won ten races with earnings of $10,365 (nearly $200,000 in 2018 dollars). By 1936, she’d raised those totals to 17 wins and $18,575, and that summer at Saratoga, Hirsch became the first woman to train a winner there, saddling a gelding named No Sir to victory in the Diana Stakes. Then, in May 1937, Hirsch became the first woman to train a horse in the Kentucky Derby when she entered No Sir in the “Run for the Roses” (he finished 13th in the 20-horse field).
Max Hirsch, meanwhile, was training a two-year-old colt owned by Anne Corning, wife of New York Congressman Parker Corning. The bay colt was named Thanksgiving, and in July 1937, he was among Max Hirsch’s horses that were stabled at Saratoga and weathered a powerful lightning storm. Several of Hirsch’s horses were struck or impacted by lightning during the freakish storm including Thanksgiving, who was found on the ground, unconscious. Miraculously, Thanksgiving lived to see another day and recovered, and Anne Corning began to develop a friendship with Mary Hirsch, asking her if she would train Thanksgiving during his three-year-old season the following year.
For the ’38 Travers, Thanksgiving had the services of jockey Eddie Arcaro. The 22-year-old Arcaro had just won the first of his four leading rider titles at Saratoga in 1937, and earned the first of his record 17 wins in the Triple Crown series in 1938, when he won the Kentucky Derby aboard Lawrin. Arcaro didn’t waste any time with Thanksgiving at the Travers; the horse “made all the others look common, leading all the way and winning fairly in a canter by four lengths,” according to John Hervey in American Race Horses, 1938. The winning time of 2:03 3/5 was the fastest since Man o’ War. For the win, Thanksgiving earned $14,400 of the $20,000 purse, and Hirsch took home $1,000 as the conditioner. She was 25 years old and the first woman trainer to win the Travers, accomplishing the feat with a horse that was lucky to be alive. But the ’38 Travers received only the typical coverage. There was no mention of Thanksgiving’s remarkable path to the race, and many newspaper accounts erroneously listed Max, not Mary Hirsch, as the trainer.
Eight decades after Thanksgiving’s victory at the Travers, I hope this story helps to set the record straight.
Of late, I’ve been plowing through the biography of Morris “Moe” Berg—a historically significant figure I can almost guarantee you’ve never heard of. Berg was a third-string, bullpen catcher in the 1920s and ’30s for a number of different Major League Baseball teams, including the Washington Senators and Boston Red Sox, and became famous not so much for his savvy behind the plate but for his brain. He was a walking encyclopedia, having studied foreign languages at Princeton (he was reportedly fluent in a number of them, including French, and proficient in Sanskrit), and sported a law degree from Columbia (he moonlighted as a lawyer in the off-season). Soon after his baseball career fizzled and the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Berg became a member of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS)—the progenitor to the Central Intelligence Agency—and spied for the US abroad during World War II. Unlike his place in baseball history, his OSS assignment was anything but trivial: He was tasked with figuring out whether the Nazis were capable of building an atomic bomb—and assassinating the scientist behind it if they were.
Obviously, we know how history played out: Hitler didn’t get the A-bomb—or make it out of the bunker, for that matter. But just imagine what would’ve happened had Berg missed a key telegram or been assassinated himself. Would I even be here writing this story right now? Would you be reading it? With current headlines reporting on unhinged, trigger-happy world leaders; virulent, vaccination-resistant strains of the flu; and catastrophic natural disasters mushrooming up every which way, it’s easy to be worried about what the future holds—and start thinking about exit strategies. And by that, I mean finding the nearest underground bunker in which to squirrel away your family and hide.
It might not surprise you, then, that there’s a growing number of ultra-wealthy individuals buying up prime plots of subterranean real estate all over the country—a number of which are within driving distance of Saratoga Springs. Select Sotheby’s International Realty’s Brian Dominic, a licensed real estate salesperson based in Lake Placid, recently told me that he’s been seeing a flurry of interest in decommissioned Atlas “F” nuclear missile silos. This specific type was built in the late 1950s and early ’60s, when Cold War tensions got to James-Bond-movie-script levels, and 72 presently dot the continental US, including a dozen in Upstate New York. If you’re trying to picture what a nuclear missile silo looks like, think about that thingamajig that holds grain on a farm, turn it upside down, ram it just under 200 feet into the ground and ring it in 9.5 feet of nuclear-resistant, epoxy-resin concrete. The above-ground “door,” if you can even call it that, is what Dominic describes as a cement “wedge.” That leads down two massive flights of stairs and around a few bends into the launch control center, a two-story room, 25 feet underground. That room sits off to the side of the main silo—which held the nuke-tipped missile—and is where some poor men had to sit for 12-hour shifts, day in and day out, waiting for the President’s “call” that never came (the upper floor was where the second team slept and ate, waiting to relieve the first one).
Dominic is quick to point out that his buyers haven’t been the type who believe the world is going to end anytime soon. “I’ve never had a legitimate buyer who was a doomsday prepper,” he says. “I’ve found that none of them are really serious.” For that reason, Dominic now charges a “showing fee” of $350 for potential buyers, which is reimbursable if that person ends up shelling out the cash for the silo. In all, Dominic says he’s officially listed three Atlas “F”s, along with two “pocket listings,” meaning the seller is high on finding a buyer but isn’t interested in publicizing the fact that he or she owns a Bond villain’s lair. Back in 2011, Dominic listed his first Atlas “F,” a property in Saranac that would eventually sport a luxury cabin and runway above the silo. Although Dominic didn’t close the deal, the silo eventually sold for $750,000. He did find a buyer, however, for an Atlas “F” in nearby Lewis—an hour and a half north of Saratoga—who paid slightly less than $600,000 for it. Its original owner had been an Australian architect and designer who wanted to turn the site into a (literal) underground dance club, but after his money dried up and investors bolted, he had to sell. Its current owner? A government contractor from the Department of Defense.
The layout of one of Larry Hall’s inverted, luxe skyscrapers somewhere in Kansas. (Survival Condo Project)
Most recently, Dominic listed an Atlas “F” for the steal-of-a-deal price of just $135,000, sitting on a 20.8-acre lot in Au Sable Forks, about two hours from Saratoga. Why so cheap compared to the Lewis property? Because it would likely require an estimated $750,000 to $1 million in renovations and repairs to get it into trick out–able form, according to Bruce Francisco, a builder and architectural designer who previously owned a missile silo with luxury upgrades in Upstate New York and is now working on a second in New Mexico. “Generally, the Upstate New York projects are filled with water,” says Francisco. “It’s kind of like having a wet basement.” Dominic concurs, not on the renovation price tag but on the basement comparison. “In the early ’60s, when the Air Force shut all these missile silos down, they also shut power off to the sump pumps,” he says. To that end, the only silo in Upstate New York without major leakage problems is the Lewis site. (The Au Sable Forks listing comes as is—with the main silo three-quarters filled with grimy water.)
Francisco also notes that if your New York silo were located within the boundaries of the Adirondack Park—a 9,375-square-mile tract of land—you would then have to deal with the policies and regulations of the state agency that oversees it (Francisco likens it to a “zoning commission”). Then there’s the Internal Revenue Service. Francisco says he paid $20,000 a year in taxes on his watery silo.
Of course, if you’re like me and enjoy the company of others, living in a giant subterranean tube sounds like a recipe for The Shining. For those who might want to host the occasional underground gala or cocktail hour, that’s where engineer and software developer Larry Hall comes into play. A New Yorker by birth—he’s originally from Corning and grew up in Elmira—Hall is the founder of Survival Condo, a pair of decommissioned Atlas “F” missile silos located in undisclosed locations in Kansas. The silos have been subdivided into 12 luxury apartment units each—including a 3,700-square-foot, two-level “penthouse” at the top of the silo’s dome cap, which starts at $4.5 million. (According to Hall, each silo “was designed to support a maximum of 75 people.” Not to mention withstand a nuclear blast.) Hall’s inverted skyscraper includes all of the amenities one might find in an upright Manhattan luxury condominium—as well as what you would need to survive, day in and day out, if the surface of the Earth were scorched and radioactive. There’s a wind turbine, diesel generators, hydroponic food sources and military grade security—you know, to battle off us plebes who might want “in.” Those families with furry friends need not worry about the coming apocalypse either, as the silo property also includes a dog park. Other “normal life” add-ons include a gym, rock climbing wall, indoor pool and arcade. And although silo-bound children might be cheering on the arrival of the four horsemen because that might mean no more school, they’ll be thoroughly disappointed to learn that Hall’s facility comes equipped with a classroom and library.
As noted above, if you’re not rolling in it, don’t bother trying to survive a doomsday scenario in the lap of luxury. “I would say our average buyer has more than a four-year college degree—the bulk of them are self-made millionaires—and almost all of them have children,” says Hall. One client referred to her unit as a “peace of mind policy,” as opposed to a life insurance policy, says Hall. The idea was that she would actually have to die for the latter to kick in, whereas the former was basically a new lease on life. Hall emphasizes that just because you’re living underground doesn’t mean that you’re giving up on your above-ground routine: Each multi-unit silo would be set up like an actual condo, so it would have a board that could decide on how to run things. “In the first silo, we lucked out: We had two doctors and a dentist that were owners,” says Hall. There were also nurses, EMTs, a former Chief of Police—hell, it sounded like a veritable Saratoga down there. (The first silo is completely sold out, by the way.)
If someone ever decides to nuke the US—or even just Upstate New York, for that matter—I’ll likely be atomized along with everybody else who can’t afford entry into a nuclear-blast-resistant bunker.But if you have the disposable income—and are willing to live out the rest of your days like a mole—I’d strongly suggest preordering a copy of The Catcher Was A Spy: The Mysterious Life Of Moe Berg by Nicholas Dawidoff. You’ll have a heck of a lot more time than the rest of us to finish it.
