John Hendrickson has been elected president of the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame by the Museum’s Executive Committee. Hendrickson succeeds Gretchen Jackson, who has served as the Museum’s president since 2014. Jackson will continue to serve as a member of the Museum’s Board of Trustees.
Hendrickson is involved in thoroughbred racing as the manager of Marylou Whitney Stables, LLC. He is also the president and chief operating officer of Whitney Industries. A former member of the New York Racing Association’s Board of Directors, Hendrickson has also been a special advisor on matters pertaining to Saratoga racing. Along with his wife, the prominent racehorse owner and breeder Marylou Whitney, Hendrickson has been instrumental in developing and supporting programs that benefit backstretch workers at Saratoga Race Course.
“I’m honored to be named president of the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame and carry on in the great tradition of Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, who was one of the Museum’s founders and its first president,” Hendrickson said. “The Museum is an important institution with a great history and a bright future.”
Cathy Marino, the Museum’s director, thanked Jackson for her service and said Hendrickson is an ideal choice to lead the Museum going forward.
“Gretchen did a wonderful job during her time as president and we are grateful for her commitment and all she did for the Museum in that role,” Marino said. “John Hendrickson brings a great passion for the sport of thoroughbred racing and he loves the Museum and understands its key role in the sport.
“John will bring a lot of energy and ideas into the presidency and I’m looking forward to working with him as the Museum continues to evolve and develop new and exciting exhibits and initiatives that educate both new and longtime fans of thoroughbred racing.”
The second most infamous night of theater happened eighty years ago, when the New Deal era Federal Theater Project pulled funding for Marc Blitzstein’s opera The Cradle Will Rock and had the doors of the theater locked on opening night. Producer John Houseman and director Orson Welles, refusing to be deterred, scrambled to rent another theater and piano and in a dramatic procession, walked the audience up to the new venue.
Due to Union rules then in place, the musicians could only appear on the stage, but the actors could not. Blitzstein himself took the stage, sat at the piano and played the opening song. From the audience, the actress playing the prostitute stood up and began to sing. The spotlight found her and the rest of the cast, as they stood up where they were to play their roles. This premiere was front page news.
It was the height of the Great Depression, the disparity of wealth in sharp relief. There was violence surrounding the forming of Unions, passions were high, as was corruption and naked greed, so an opera about these themes made our government nervous, which is why they pulled the funding.
A scene from Opera Saratoga’s production of ‘The Cradle Will Rock.’ (Susan Brink)
It is rarely produced with full orchestration, as Blitzstein composed it. And it has never been commercially recorded. Bravo to Opera Saratoga for mounting and recording this exquisite production at The Little Theater in Spa State Park.
The story takes place in 1937 Steeltown USA, on the night of a Union Rally. A prostitute is arrested, after refusing to take money from a corrupt cop. By mistake, the anti-union Liberty Committee who represent different facets of the “respectable” community is also arrested. Their services have been paid for by Mr. Mister, who owns the Steel Plant. Through vignettes, we see how these citizens (clergy, pharmacist, physician, newsman) are bought off by Mr. Mister.
Opera Saratoga’s Artistic Director, Lawrence Edelson, did a masterful job in directing this true to the original version, keeping the original vision and humor intact. Set designer Martin T. Lopez designed the simple, multi-level set the same color as theater walls, allowing the performances to shine. Conductor John Mauceri did double duty, playing the role of The Clerk. Anya Klepikov’s costumes were brightly colored, but true to the era. The performances were outstanding, bringing every nuance of their character to life.
I am proud to repeat here what Director Edelson noted, to thunderous applause, before curtain. Funding for this production was made possible by The Kurt Weill Foundation for Music and the National Endowment for the Arts.
You may or may not have noticed the stately, black carriage house on the north side of town. Its bold color is unmistakable yet almost camouflaged by its new dark exterior. However, Betsy and Pete Olmsted are not afraid of a little color. In fact, every room inside this big, old carriage house is bright and cheery. Betsy, a textile artist known for her colorful designs and patterns, has infused the home with a life and vibrancy that is modern, eclectic, and totally fresh. From the modern, orange sofa in the tv room (where the kids play what they call “old fashioned WII,” aka the original Nintendo, on a small tube television) to the gorgeous pieces of contemporary art on the walls, color abounds.
The old carriage house was originally renovated into a home in 2010 by builder Robert Courtney and designed by Phinney Design Group and Charlene Wood (of Silverwood Home and Galleries). They retained much of the original details of the original barn but with a stunning post and beam design. The home is now almost completely open concept, with a large windowed cupola in the center of the home, allowing light to filter in though most of the rooms.
One of the first things the Olmsteads did when they moved in was to paint everything inside the house white, including the home’s exposed timber frame. It completely changed the feel of the space, giving it a more modern and airy look while also becoming a perfect backdrop for their colorful furniture pieces, art, and textiles. The kids’ rooms are cleverly decorated but not at all fussy, a clear collaboration between a designer mother and her young boys. Every room feels curated but fun, totally livable, and real for a young family’s lifestyle.
Betsy’s art studio is in the old stables portion of the building, with the old stalls intact and offering perfect separations between the studio’s different creative spaces. Interestingly, it was this space that really sealed the deal on this home. As a young mother, she really wanted to find a home where she could work from home, close to her kids, but with enough space and separation to run a professional art studio. In fact, one of the things that stands out about this home is that every space seems to serve a practical purpose- whether it’s lived in, worked in, or played in, this carriage house is loved and it shows.
In the spring of 1953, as mob mogul Meyer Lansky began a three-month sentence in the Saratoga County Jail in Ballston Spa – his only jail term ever – he may have dreamed of the welcoming warmth of Havana. Just the year before, Lansky’s good friend, President Fulgencio Batista, had retaken the Cuban government in a military coup and was running the show.
Lansky may have had bad dreams, too. The unfortunate consensus at the mafia’s Havana Convention, held just before Christmas 1946 at the Hotel Nacional, was that Bugsy Siegel, his friend since childhood, must be “removed.” Mob leaders from around the nation had become convinced that Siegel was skimming money from the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas. Shortly after, Siegel was shot dead in his girlfriend’s home in Beverly Hills.
Still, Lansky could have had reasons to be optimistic that good times would return as soon as his jail time was up. Another decision of that historic Havana gathering: Charles “Lucky” Luciano, another young friend of Lansky’s, would be kingpin of the mob, calling the shots as he bided his time in Cuba, hoping to return to the U.S. after being deported.
Frank Sinatra came down to croon for the mobsters in high style. The syndicate knew that top-of-the-line entertainment, the best chefs, honest gaming, classy accommodations and beautiful women would draw the big gamblers and celebrities – a winning combination in Havana, Las Vegas… and Saratoga.
The story of how Saratoga Springs became a center for mob glitz dials back to the 1919 opening of The Brook, a casino and cabaret where tuxedos were required. By 1936 no one could open a casino in Saratoga Springs without the approval of the Combination and its head, Luciano, according to Colliers’ magazine. And it didn’t slow down one bit when Luciano, dubbed Public Enemy No. 1, was sent to prison later that year in upstate New York. Joe Adonis simply took his place.
Lansky, Luciano and Frank Costello were all protégés of famed ’20s gambling and narcotics czar Arnold Rothstein, the reputed fixer of the 1919 “Black Sox” World Series, who owned the classy Brook casino out on Church Street in Saratoga, where Lansky and Luciano learned their trade. Rothstein and Luciano were silent partners in the Chicago Club on Woodlawn Avenue in Saratoga.
By 1951, Costello, Adonis and Lansky had “formed the eastern axis of a combination of racketeers working through the nation,” according to a U.S. Senate committee report on organized crime. Sen. Estes Kefauver investigated organized crime in 14 cities across the country and heard testimony from more than 600 witnesses, and it was televised, riveting millions to their TVs to watch slot machine king Costello’s hands twitch as he testified. The TV cameras focused only on his wringing hands, giving a sinister impression as he spoke in a gravelly voice.
The rise of Saratoga casinos was documented and aired in the congressional hearings, including a 1943 letter Lansky had written to his accountant. Lansky had always told associates to keep all figures in their heads, but didn’t follow his own advice. The letter stated that Costello had a 30 percent interest in the Piping Rock casino in Saratoga Springs; other partners included Lansky’s brother, Jake, and Adonis, New Jersey’s gambling kingpin.
Before the ink was dry on the Kefauver congressional report, New York Gov. Thomas E. Dewey ordered grand jury investigations into the link between organized crime and local governments. And that led to a Saratoga County grand jury indictment for Lansky and three months of jail time. He also was fined $2,500 for his involvement in the Arrowhead Inn on Saratoga Lake.
The county grand jury handed down 24 indictments involving 49 people; 41 were convicted, including Louis J. “Doc” Farone, who was connected with Smith’s Interlaken, Riley’s and the Meadowbrook, and received a sentence of nine months.
Even before then, the press saw the good times coming to a halt.
“Saratoga Moans the Blues; Cops Put Lid on Gambling,” read the headline in the New York Daily News in August 1948 … “The moaning was terrific. Piping Rock, for instance, has booked a show that will cost the management $25,000 a week – with attractions like Joe E. Lewis and Kay Thompson and the Williams Brothers – and you can’t meet that on the income from food and liquor – even at Saratoga prices…”
But Jack Lait, a columnist for the New York Daily Mirror, proclaimed the end was near in August 1951: “It took a century to break the heart of Saratoga… Saratoga is terrorized and paralyzed. The little the Kefauver Committee missed last year by its threats to give the burg the business by taking away its principal business. Gov. Dewey’s State Crime Commission has mopped up.
“Almost everybody, including bartenders and waiters, is under subpoena… The spark of the Spa has gone out.”
But a new spark was born: Cuba. Lansky, who served jail time with Farone, made him an offer that Farone refused. An associate of Farone’s told this writer in a 2013 interview that “Meyer Lansky offered [Doc] a piece of Cuba-locals couldn’t gamble, only those from outside the country-and a piece of Nevada.” But Farone turned him down. “Someone would have shot him, too.”
As the heat had increased in Saratoga, Lansky, always looking ahead, established a relationship with Batista after they met at the Waldorf Astoria in New York in the late 1940s. Then, they agreed on kickbacks in exchange for mob control of racetracks and gambling in Cuba. After Batista retook power in a military coup in 1952, the golden era for mob-run casinos in the “Cuban Las Vegas” would soon begin, and Lansky had elaborate visions.
But all good things must come to an end. On New Year’s Eve 1958, more than a year after Lansky opened his opulent Hotel Habana Riviera, Batista fled the country. Eight days later, Fidel Castro set up his revolutionary government in the Hilton, but by then Lansky had slipped out of the country, too, escaping to the Bahamas. Then came the final blow: On Oct. 30, 1959, Castro nationalized the casinos and outlawed gambling.
It’s just a coincidence that Nancy Matt’s name rhymes with “fancy hat.” But given her affinity for fashion and her natural aptitude for designing imaginative, one-of-a kind chapeaus, it might as well be destiny.
One sticky summer evening on Broadway, the renowned millinery designer hurried into Encounter Boutique carrying a plastic bin piled with feathery fabrics. Matt, giddy to show off her newest creations, set down the bin and changed out of her walking shoes-black ballet flats-and into her outfit’s real shoes-black stilettos with pink three-dimensional flowers attached at the toe of each shoe.
Encounter is one of two places (Departure at Albany International Airport is the other) you can find Matt’s designs in-store, where they range in price from around $150 to close to $700. Alternatively, you can contact her directly under the label “Le Beau Chapeau” to purchase a hat, or to consult about a hat you may want her to design especially for you.
“The girls usually bring their dresses,” Matt says of consultations with past customers. “Or I’m invited to the home and they start pulling from the closet. Maybe they want one piece – one hat – that will go with multiple clothing changes.”
Matt has always had an eye for fashion, she says, offering advice to friends and her three sisters since she was a child. She broke into the fashion industry in high school by walking door to door to design companies in New York City, asking questions and making connections. She devoted herself to hats, because they, to her, were “the finishing accessory.”
Out of the bin comes a multi-colored floral crown complete with fake moss, immediately snatched by store manager Danielle Patane, who claims it to be her new favorite. Next is a teardrop-shaped fascinator topped with a large peach rose and gold leaflets cascading off the right side. Matt positions it carefully on her head, rearranging her short blonde hair in a full-length mirror and looks back at Patane expectantly.
As a hat designer, Matt is the creative inspiration behind each piece. The designs – over 150 of them each Saratoga season – just come to her, she says.
“And thank goodness something new comes to me every season!” Matt says.
She doesn’t, however partake in the physical construction process.
“When I create a piece, it starts with sketching,” Matt says. “I send that sketch to a very talented woman in New York, and she actually constructs the hat frame. I choose the materials used and she inserts her creativity in how they will be best presented in the piece. We work wonderfully together, and have for at least 12 years.”
Matt’s pieces have been worn by elegant women including Mary Lou Whitney, Michelle Riggi, Margie Rotchford, Julie Bonnacio, American Pharaoh Owner Joanne Zayat and journalist Megyn Kelly. Three quarters of the women in the winner’s circle when Big Brown won the Kentucky Derby in 2008 were wearing her designs. She even had the opportunity to design for First Lady of Kentucky Judi Patton when she presented the winner’s trophy at the 1999 Kentucky Derby.
Matt admits she spends too many late hours concentrating on the perfect appearance of her hats. She works full time doing clerical and reception work for a design house, so often can’t find the time to design until evening.
“I’m very fussy,” Matt says. “But if the girls are going to make that investment, I want them to have the best product possible. I think it adds to the pride of the product when the girls are wearing it.”
These girls – the women who seek out and wear Matt’s hats – are very fashion savvy, Matt says.
“When they walk into a room they like to be wearing a piece that they are sure no other lady will have. And they love to match to their wardrobe.”
Though each of her designs is entirely unique, Matt tends to put extra trim on many of her hats. In a crowd of hats, hers can be identified by authentic vintage trim she collects on her travels to Manhattan, Pennsylvania or Florida.
As for the trend of the entire hat industry, Matt says, all eyes are on Britain’s major races, like the Ascot, and Princess Kate.
“She is really a factor,” Matt says. “American women are looking more and more for her to dictate hat fashion.”
Matt puts on a hat she had set aside when originally unloading her new designs. It is one she has kept for herself – a black fascinator that sits slightly tilted on her head, with a pink flower and a feather. As she looks in the mirror, it becomes clear the hat was designed to match her flowered high heels. It is truly “the finishing accessory.”
Plastered across a roadside billboard in the Vedado district of Havana, two rows of young ballerinas smile with eyes upturned and arms outstretched. Next to the photo, bold text declares, “LA REVOLUCIÓN ES INVENCIBLE.”
This is one of the many patriotic displays that pepper Cuba’s aging thoroughfares. My four-hour cab ride from Havana to Trinidad could have been pitched as a scenic tour of the island’s government-sanctioned ideology; photos of Fidel Castro, stencils of Che Guevara, and billboards referencing La Revolución recurred ad nauseam, emerging from the horizon, swelling, and passing along the side of the highway like waves in a sea of propaganda.
“What do you think of those?” I asked my cab driver in Spanish, gesturing towards a particularly explicit banner up ahead. It was a cartoon of a disembodied forearm labeled “La Revolución” clenching its fist, poised to crush Uncle Sam against a brick wall labeled “Embargo.”
He shot me an unimpressed glance in the rearview mirror. “It’s like, blah blah blah,” he responded in English, with a flick of his fingers. This was before the police pulled him over for impersonating a taxi driver.
(Sophia Perez)
Most Cubans don’t actually exhibit the frenzied nationalism of their roadside propaganda. That said, many locals do offer Americans a glowing introduction to the island through people-to-people tours.
U.S. citizens can visit Cuba legally so long as they participate in a “people-to-people exchange,” a category of sanctioned travel that the U.S. Department of the Treasury defines as “a full-time schedule of educational exchange activities intended to enhance contact with the Cuban people, support civil society in Cuba, or promote the Cuban people’s independence from Cuban authorities, and that will result in meaningful interaction between the traveler and individuals in Cuba.” Because the Cuban government is interested in the economic boost promised by American tourism, Cuban travel companies now offer “people-to-people” travel packages that grant U.S. citizens legal legitimacy for what otherwise amounts to an all-inclusive vacation.
Before my ill-fated trip to Trinidad, I sampled the “Escape to Havana” package offered by Vemares, a people-to-people tour provider that arranged my lodging, meals, tours, and transfers. I didn’t fully appreciate the effortless travel that Vemares made possible until after the package was over; many logistical complications can emerge when navigating Cuba on your own. For example, at the tail end of a 200-mile trip, you may discover that your cab driver is not an actual cab driver.
Despite the fixed itinerary, people-to-people tours have plenty to offer the adventurous explorer. My wild ride began when my guide, Lisa, and driver, Ernesto, picked me up from the Jose Martí Airport in a lime green 1956 Chevy 210. After cranking down the windows in Havana’s February heat, Lisa delivered a crash course on Cuba, listing important facts every foreigner should know:
Don’t drink the tap water, as it is known to upset American systems. Cuba has two kinds of currencies, the Cuban convertible peso (CUC) and the weaker Cuban peso (CUP), and while officially 1 CUC equals 24 CUP equals $1 US, you’ll have trouble exchanging a buck for any more than .87 CUC. There is very limited Internet access on the island, but some hotels will let you hop on their WiFi for 1.50 CUC per hour. Cubans receive their government-subsidized food rations for oil, rice, ground beef, chicken, eggs and more in librettos; other goods can be purchased in Tiendas de Regulación de Divisa, or TRDs. Raul Castro began allowing privatization in some industries back in 2010; he legalized modest private businesses only last year. Cuba has two national beers, Bucanero and Cristal. Lisa prefers Cristal, she said, as we weaved between the big-boned Chevys and Chryslers and miniature Ladas and Yugos of the Soviet era.
It didn’t take long to realize that people-to-people tours provide more than a legal loophole for American vacationers; true to their mission, they facilitate meaningful interactions between travelers and Cuban locals. Thanks to Vemares, I can look back on my time in Havana as a series of illuminating conversations and a handful of familiar faces, not just an indulgent holiday in an unfamiliar place.
(Sophia Perez)
One memorable conversation took place over lunch on that first day, when Lisa and I were the sole patrons in a lavish dining room. Lisa had described the place as an upscale “private restaurant,” but she had meant that the business was privately owned. I asked her why we were the only ones there.
“The average Cuban only makes 20 CUC [$20] per month,” she said. “You have to plan your spending very carefully.”
She explained that many of the private restaurants that have opened in Cuba over the past year are meant to cater to tourists, not locals. In a way, Cuba has two economies to go along with its two currencies. One caters to foreigners and mirrors their prices. The other corresponds to the Cuban way of life. For example, drivers with classic cars will over-charge tourists around 15 CUC to drive three or four miles in Havana. Cuban locals catch 60-cent rides in designated trucks, where rows of seats are lined up on either side of tall, ceilinged truck beds. And while locals may be shielded from homelessness, sickness, and starvation by government subsidies, they are still often forced to face the impossible prices of the outside world; despite the average monthly wage, a gallon of gas in Cuba still costs around 3.70 CUC.
After a few mojitos and a large dish of ropa vieja, our conversation turned to college tuition. In Cuba, education on all levels is 100 percent subsidized by the government. When I told Lisa about tuition rates in the United States, she was so shocked that I couldn’t help but laugh at my own country’s expense.
“You’re laughing,” she said, in disbelief. Then she smiled. “In Cuba, we also laugh at the bad things in our country.”
Along with Lisa, I owe many fond memories of Havana to the couple who hosted me at my casa particular. Every morning, Yolanda, an editor for a government-run magazine, and her husband, an engineering consultant, would chat with me over an enormous breakfast: omelets, ham, cheese, fresh bread, fruit, mango juice, guava juice, and strong Cuban coffee. They were well-versed in the history of U.S.-Cuba relations and had much to say about the Spanish-American War, Donald Trump, and the time Madonna danced on a dinner table in a fancy Cuban restaurant (it was her 58th birthday).
Not long after my arrival, I asked Yolanda and her husband about the famous Fábrica de Arte Cubano (FAC), an oil-refinery-turned-art venue where patrons can dine, drink, and dance among art galleries, fashion shows, live music and more. It turned out they were regulars at the FAC and had even been offered a VIP card by the prominent local artist Enrique Rottenberg, an Israeli photographer, director, and writer who exhibits his photography at the FAC when he’s not moonlighting as one of the most successful real estate tycoons on the island. They were kind enough to lend me their card.
On my first night at the FAC, I flashed the VIP card to skip a line that wrapped around the block, bought a 10 CUC mojito that was served in a glass just under the size of a pitcher, admired a two-story photography exhibit that surrounded a dance floor, and then stumbled into a death metal concert. On my second night, I had the pleasure of meeting the mysterious and eccentric Enrique Rottenberg himself, and we meandered through his exhibit together.
His work manages to be at once absurd and poignant. He casts his lens toward a number of serious topics ranging from the subconscious to the effect of capitalism on contemporary Cuban culture, only to destabilize the authority of his own perspective with his unique and unnerving sense of humor. One piece displays him at the edge of a barren landscape, frowning from his upright position in a baby-sized wash basin, his 50-something frame fully exposed. In another, he stands between two cock-eyed men wearing what appears to be a full-body cat costume. All three face the camera from a shabby room laden with water damage, and all three hold brightly colored boxes of Trix cereal. Rottenberg gestured toward a piece in which only his head was exposed at the top of a pile of raw chicken. Upon further inspection, the pile of chicken was actually part of some kind of sleeveless, full-body garment.
“Cuban Lady Gaga,” he told me, raising his eyebrows. He was certainly eccentric.
Having discovered the FAC, I fell into a happy rhythm. I spent my mornings and afternoons with Lisa, strolling through Old Havana to admire its bright, busy streets and Colonial Spanish architecture; staring up at the enormous likenesses of Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos at La Plaza de la Revolución; walking along the edge of El Morro, the 16th-century fort where Habaneros protected their homes from raiding pirates; tip-toeing around animal bones left over from Santeria ceremonies held in Havana’s forests… I spent my free evenings back at the FAC, where I met locals, artists, and fellow travelers.
On my final night of the package, Lisa and I attended the Cabaret Parisien at the Hotel Nacional de Cuba, a popular hotel and tourist destination known for hosting the Sicilian and American Mafia’s Havana Conference in 1946. After an evening of drinks, chorus lines and feathered costumes, I was sorry to see our time together come to an end. We jotted down each other’s contact information before she dropped me off at my casa particular, where I would catch a few hours of sleep before heading off to Trinidad.
As for the fake cab driver: After failing to convince the police that he and I were lifelong friends on a road trip to Trinidad (he couldn’t remember my name), he was fined 50 CUC, well over two months’ wages for most Cubans. Despite the steep penalty, he remained in high spirits for the rest of our journey. He had charged me 75 CUC for the ride.
Note: President Trump announced new sanctions in June that limit individual people-to-people travel, but allow group people-to-people travel. To learn more, click here. For information about Vemares and the artist Enrique Rottenberg, click here.
Four or five times in my adult life, I’ve had the good fortune to attend the Kentucky Derby. The pomp, the elegance, the heady rush – by rights, those occasions should form my peak experiences at the track. For most of my adult life, I’ve lived 5 miles away from Churchill Downs. But for me, the pinnacle came in 1973, when I was 6 years old.
I grew up the child of a horse-crazy mother from Teaneck, New Jersey. In her teens, she worked as an exercise girl at the River Vale harness track. At Cornell, she became friends with a veterinary student who, 20 years later, became the personal doctor to a big red colt with an astonishing stride.
My mother’s own career goal had likewise been veterinary medicine, but history was against her. She had the ill fortune to come of age in the 1950s, when women were not admitted to vet school on the grounds that they’d just take a slot that should have gone to a man, then inevitably turn around and start a family, and that would be the end of their practice.
The powers-that-be kept her out of vet school, but they couldn’t kill her love of horses. The year I was born, she and my father bought twenty rolling acres of Kansas grassland, where a few years later they opened an Arabian stud farm. They christened it Southwind, after the creation myth: Allah created the Arabian horse from the south wind and gave the beast this blessing: “You shall fly without wings.” This was the milieu into which I was born. As a child, my favorite books were King of the Wind, about the Godolphin Arabian, one of the foundation sires of the thoroughbred breed; The Black Stallion; and The Sweet Running Filly. My toys were model racehorses: Man o’ War, Citation, Kelso.
Every year, on the first Saturday in May, my mother tuned our RCA television to coverage of the Kentucky Derby. The roar of “And they’re off!” shivered my young skin. In 1973, Secretariat swept the Triple Crown in a transcendent, nearly unearthly performance – 31 lengths and pulling away in the Belmont, flying without wings. We watched the replays over and over. My mother bought a copy of Time Magazine with his image on the cover: SUPER HORSE. My sisters and I wrote fan mail to the colt and mailed it off care of Penny Chenery at Meadow Stud. And then, thanks to Mom’s old college pal, we met Secretariat in person, in a private meeting on the backside at Belmont Park just after he’d captured the crown.
It’s a moment I’ll never forget. I held out my hand, and he bent his head down and snuffled it. He was immense and restless. His coat glowed a burnished red.
A few years later, after two more horses had won the Triple Crown, my parents took me to Churchill Downs. The experience felt holy to me. Standing on the track, I stared slack-jawed at the iconic twin spires, transfixed by the thought of the greats who had raced on this very spot. My dad handed me the thin plastic sleeve off his cigarette pack so I could scoop up some of the sandy dirt and take it home with me, a sacred relic.
In those days, horse racing occupied a mythic spot in the American psyche, precisely opposite the other sport then at its height: boxing, a brutal domain of body blows and broken noses, a sport whose aim was to overpower. Horse racing was the antithesis of all that, dedicated to the veneration of pure exultant speed. It drew from a power born of beauty, elegance, athleticism, know-how and good breeding, both human and equine.
What other sport exudes as much rich ceremony as horse racing, and where besides Saratoga embodies that historic pageantry at its apotheosis? Nineteen seventy-three, Secretariat’s year, began with Carly Simon at No. 1 on the pop charts singing “You’re So Vain,” a song about a preternaturally fortunate man. It was de rigueur that horse racing – and specifically Saratoga – figured into his elevated world.
Saratoga Race Course is the spot for the rarefied, for racegoers toting bottles of Perrier-Jouet in their picnic baskets. The upper level of the clubhouse is a sort of Mount Olympus in which the spectators are deities and the horses and jockeys mere mortals, speeding around the track below at a splendid remove. The rail, by contrast, is a windswept plain outside the painted cave at Lascaux, where humans are humbled, overtaken by the thunder in their chests as godlike horses sweep past.
Whether you prefer Mount Olympus or Lascaux, there is simply nothing else like race day at Saratoga. What other occasion is so filled with color and hope, ambition and chance, all of it reflected in the high shine of horses’ coats and the gemlike gleam of silks? What other occasion so perfectly pairs aesthetic splendor with fine-tuned animality? The iconic clubhouse roofline and infield gazebo lend a timeless air of spectacle. The architecture may be Queen Anne, but the swooping turrets and fluttering pennants lend the feel that you’ve landed in the midst of a medieval tournament, only instead of heavy-hoofed chargers and jousting knights, the contestants are lean thoroughbreds bearing brave hard riders the size of preadolescents. The trainers finger their stopwatches. The owners’ feet hover a hair’s breadth off the ground. It is all so very transporting.
Saratogians may enjoy the name-drop in Carly Simon’s song, but I’ve always thought the real tribute to the elegance of horse racing lies in the trajectory of that verse: After his (naturally) triumphant day at Saratoga, Simon’s playboy boards his LearJet bound for Nova Scotia to view a total solar eclipse – the only spectacle that could possibly follow the glories of the race course.
And therein lies the compliment. What Simon is saying is this: After Saratoga, you have to look to the heavens.
There is a very simple reason Tony Cristello focused his artwork on horses.
“I wanted one and I never was going to get one, so I was just drawing them all the time,” he said.
Cristello has been creating images of famous racehorses since he was a child growing up in Schenectady in the 1940s. At 74, he’s still at it and so busy that he has no time to think about retiring.
A collection of Cristello’s more recent work is on permanent display at Jacob & Anthony’s American Grille, which opened on High Rock Avenue in Saratoga Springs in 2010. Cristello created pastel portraits of the 12 horses who belong in the Triple Crown Room, the restaurant’s private dining area. Hanging prominently behind a nearby bar is his rendering of Funny Cide, the 2003 Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner. Funny Cide was born at McMahon Thoroughbreds in Saratoga Springs and is owned by Sackatoga Stable.
Cristello, a Schenectady resident, is a longtime friend of the owners of Jacob & Anthony’s, and the three Bellini’s restaurants in the Capital Region. When he heard about the plans for the Saratoga restaurant, he pitched the idea for an ambitious project.
“I told them, ‘if you’re going to do a Triple Crown Room, I have folders of every one of the winners and I’ll do a portrait of each one,’ he said. “That’s what I did. They were framed in Albany and came out pretty good.”
To prepare for his portraits, Cristello researches photographs of the subject horse. That approach has worked well, but he could only find four images of Sir Barton, who in 1919 was the first horse to win the Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes.
Cristello became interested in horses while watching westerns at a theater near his Mont Pleasant neighborhood home. “If it was a Roy Rogers movie, I’d be looking at Trigger,” he said. “I knew the names of all of the horses of the stars.”
In 1950, his father took him to Saratoga Raceway, the Standardbred track, where he had his first encounter with racehorses. He has vivid memories of trips with his father to Saratoga Race Course to watch the Thoroughbreds do their early morning training. The Cristellos would leave for Saratoga after closing their family restaurant in Schenectady for the night around 2 a.m., grab something to eat and head over to the track to sit with a handful of onlookers.
Cristello laughed as he described the scene. “That was before they invented the breakfast at Saratoga,” he said.
Early in his career, Cristello was a graphic artist at General Electric in Schenectady. He left GE, became a barber and developed his art studio next door. Cristello has done a great deal of work for Saratoga Casino and Raceway though the years, and his paintings hang in the track’s hall of fame. His vast collection of Ruffian memorabilia and a painting of the brilliant, ill-fated filly were displayed at the National Museum of Racing.
Two years ago, when American Pharoah ended the 37-year Triple Crown drought and became the 12th winner, Cristello was ready to create another portrait for Jacob & Anthony’s.
“As soon as he won it, I knew I had to do another,” Cristello said, chuckling. “One of the owners called me up and says, ‘I have a job for you.’ I said, ‘I’ve already started it.'”
As he watched Tapwrit catch and pass Irish War Cry in the stretch to capture the Belmont Stakes on June 10, Brian Spearman found himself in one of those rare can-you-believe-this moments in life. The mix of emotions he felt as a member of the winning team –
a year after losing the Belmont Stakes by a nose – included liberal doses of happiness and relief.
Spearman, who spent much of his youth in Saratoga Springs, where Thoroughbred racing is part of the culture, quickly discovered that a victory in an American classic, the oldest Triple Crown race, can be an exhilarating and numbing experience.
“When he made the last little surge and it was clear that he was going to win, it was sheer disbelief and unbelievable excitement,” he said, his voice rising. “Even now, it’s hard to describe.”
In the 2016 Belmont Stakes, Spearman was part of the ownership group with Destin, who was edged at the wire by Creator.
Like so many people raised in the region surrounding Saratoga Race Course, Spearman, 55, learned to love the sport at the old track on Union Avenue, where he later had a summer job, working overnight in security. Following a very successful corporate career at PepsiCo, he is a principal in Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners, one of the co-owners of Tapwrit. Fully appreciative of the significance of winning the Belmont Stakes, Spearman would love to see Tapwrit become the 30th horse to win the Belmont and Saratoga’s signature race, the Travers Stakes.
“Growing up in Saratoga Springs, going to school in New York City and now living in Connecticut, being a New Yorker through and through, winning the Belmont Stakes is a boyhood dream,” he says. “Winning the biggest race at Belmont Park and winning the biggest race at Saratoga in my eyes would probably be the two crowning achievements. Although other people may argue that other races are more prestigious, for a guy like me, those two are at the top of the list.”
With a hearty devil-may-care laugh, Spearman acknowledged that while Eclipse Thoroughbreds Partners co-owner and President Aron Wellman cautions him not to look too far ahead, the thrill of winning the Travers is something he hopes to experience this summer. Last year, Destin finished ninth, which was far, far, far behind record-setting Arrogate.
“Aron would shudder about it, but as a Saratoga boy, no doubt,” he said. “I would be disingenuous if I said to you that it wouldn’t be a wonderful thing if the stars lined up, we were in it and God only knows from there.”
As a longtime fan of racing and an owner for six years, Spearman knows that it is foolhardy to try to predict whether powerful but fragile Thoroughbreds will be sound and ready for a race two or three months away. Still, why be in the game if no wishing and hoping is permitted? The Travers will be run on Aug. 26 and, as usual, Spearman will be there.
George Isaacs, left, general manager of Bridlewood Farm, and Aron Wellman, president and co-founder of Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners, lead Tapwrit and jockey Jose Ortiz toward the winner’s circle following their victory in the Belmont Stakes on June 10. Tapwrit, purchased for $1.2 million at Fasig-Tipton’s 2015 Saratoga select yearling sale, was sixth in the Kentucky Derby. (Mike Kane)
Spearman’s family moved upstate to Saratoga Springs in 1970 when he was 7 years old because his father was working on the construction of the new campus at the University at Albany. He attended St. Peter’s schools and graduated from Saratoga Central Catholic High School in 1980. One month after earning a degree in economics from Fordham University in 1984, he started what turned into a 32-year career with PepsiCo that took him and his family to assignments around the United States and included international responsibilities. His final role was as a senior vice president of the supply chain.
With his 50th birthday approaching, Spearman decided to become more actively involved in racing. He describes it as a straightforward move: “I said, ‘I’m at a point in my life, I’m blessed and maybe I could fulfill part of a childhood dream to own a piece of a racehorse and see what that’s all about.'” His research led him to Dogwood Stable, the original partnership company formed nearly 50 years ago by the pioneering Cot Campbell.
“I called Cot and we absolutely hit it off from the beginning,” Spearman said. “He was very generous with his time. This was a stage in Cot’s career where he didn’t need another partner or investor and he easily could have said, ‘I’m winding down and you might want to consider over here,’ but he didn’t.”
Through the years, Campbell and his wife, Anne, have become close friends with Spearman and his two children. “He’s a very nice man, a very warm, uncomplicated guy with a spectacular business career behind him,” Cot Campbell said. “He was very anxious to get into Dogwood partnerships and he bought some shares. He’s been a wonderful partner, and he has evolved as I have to the Eclipse team.”
Early in his time with Dogwood, Spearman asked Cot Campbell to meet him for breakfast to discuss a very personal request: allow him to purchase all the shares in a Dogwood horse that he would name after his late son Nolan, who had died suddenly at the age of 2½, nearly 20 years earlier, on Christmas morning. Though it completely went against the concept of a partnership, Campbell agreed.
“People have said to me, ‘maybe I should buy two shares in this horse, or three shares,'” Campbell said. “I’ve said, ‘you really shouldn’t. You should buy one share in this horse and one share in horse B. It makes more sense and spreads your risk.’ It’s not a thing that has come up ever, but I understood the nature of this.”
Spearman had waited until his two children, Laura and Aidan, were teens, old enough to be involved in the tribute to their older brother. They made a visit to Aiken, South Carolina, and picked out a yearling sired by Malibu Moon that Dogwood had purchased. Laura came up with the name: None Like Nolan. On July 31, 2014, in his fifth career start, None Like Nolan, picked up the first of his two career victories by a nose at – where else? – Saratoga Race Course.
“It was a little bit of a fairy tale that he could come to Saratoga and win,” Spearman said. “That was just a bit surreal and just a wonderful way for the family to be back in racing, to be back in Saratoga and to do something to honor my son.”
Although he and his six siblings all moved away from Saratoga Springs, Spearman stayed connected to the city by visiting his mother, Joan, who died in March 2016. He is a full-time resident of Ridgefield, Connecticut, but owns a home in Saratoga Springs and stays in touch with classmates at Saratoga Central Catholic.
“I had a lot of fun and made great friends who I still see all these years later and who root for Tapwrit and who text me,” he said. “I see them more in the summer, but they are lifelong friends. It’s such a small school. I think our graduating class is 35 or 37.”
Spearman’s work with Eclipse brings him back to Saratoga for the entire racing meet, and he visits every month now that he is the chairman of the board of the Saratoga WarHorse Foundation, the nonprofit that serves veterans. Saratoga WarHorse will hold its Blue Spangled Evening Gala on Aug. 14.
Through the merger of Dogwood Stable and Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners, Spearman transitioned into investing in Eclipse horses. In 2015, he purchased the equity of the Eclipse co-founder, who was leaving the company, and became Wellman’s partner, with the title of chairman. At the end of the first quarter of 2016, Spearman retired from PepsiCo. He is now completely involved in racing.
“Can you believe it?” he said. “It’s a nice sort of 2.0 for my life. I tell people that I am ridiculously blessed, that I had a wonderful career at PepsiCo and for my second career I could take a passion and a hobby that I have and begin to have it also be a business. How many people get to do that? I’m ridiculously blessed. And I do know it.”
In the week after Tapwrit won the Belmont Stakes, Eclipse had approximately 60 horses in training and 300 active investors. Wellman, who is based in Southern California, grew up in a family that owned racehorses, and formed his first partnership when he was a young lawyer. In 2008, he became a vice president of Team Valor International and went on to start Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners. Spearman focuses on the business aspects of the company.
“We both are very active in partner relations, being at the races, meeting our partners, hearing what they like and don’t like and how we could better the company,” Spearman said. “I do go to the majority of the sales with Aron, more to learn. He makes the call on the horses. That’s his lane, I respect it and he obviously does a fabulous job. I do go to the sales with him because I have a desire to learn, and it’s been great spending time with him and the whole team.”
In August 2015, at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sale, Wellman and Spearman took a major gamble and purchased a yearling gray son of top sire Tapit. Certain that the bidding would go well beyond Eclipse’s budget, they formed a partnership with Robert LaPenta and Bridlewood Farm, owned by John and Leslie Malone. The group prevailed and landed the colt for $1.2 million. They named him Tapwrit – Tap from the sire’s name, and writ, which is a legal document, because the dam’s sire is named Successful Appeal. He finished last of 10 in his first career start at Saratoga but won his next two starts. He lived up to expectations in the Belmont Stakes, running down Irish War Cry in the stretch following two disappointing finishes, fifth in the Blue Grass Stakes and sixth in the Kentucky Derby.
“It was clearly risky on our end, but I was there at the sale with Aron and he had such conviction that we had to try to do everything we could to be able to pull this off and purchase the horse,” Spearman said. “I’ve seen him have conviction on a horse, but he had the real conviction on this one. I could just tell by his level of engagement, excitement and creativity on how we were going to pull this all together. Make no mistake, it was a big swing for us. Had it gone differently, who knows? But we’ll never know that, thank God. So it’s gone great.”
It was a Triple Crown season in which all three winners had solid connections to Saratoga Springs and the Capital Region. Dr. Joan Taylor and Dr. Bill Wilmot did not come home to Saratoga with a trophy, yet they secured a precious prize they had been working toward for more than 30 years.
Taylor and Wilmot, who met at Tufts University veterinary school and married after graduation, bred Belmont Stakes starter Twisted Tom at their Stepwise Farm on Fitch Road near Saratoga Lake. While they have produced many successful horses through the years, Twisted Tom was their first Triple Crown runner. Starting on the rail, he found plenty of trouble yet showed some grit and finished sixth in the field of 11.
Though a victory would have been oh so sweet, Taylor and Wilmot appreciated their personal accomplishment. “To reach a level where one of your horses is thought highly enough of to run in one of the classics is a great honor and really a lifetime achievement for us,” she said. “When I sat at the bar at the old Sperry’s with Bill, I don’t think we were married at the time, he said one of his dreams was to breed a horse that ran in the classics. Lo and behold, I think this horse fulfilled that dream.”
Taylor and Wilmot have delivered approximately 150 Thoroughbred foals at Stepwise Farm. Some have been sold for very nice prices at auction. A high percentage have been winners on the track and a good number have won stakes. Twisted Tom, a son of Creative Cause out of their broodmare Tiffany Twisted, twice failed to sell at auction because radiographs showed a sesamoid bone in one of his legs may be a problem. He was withdrawn from a third sale and was subsequently sold to Thomas Brockley for a bargain price in a private sale. Brockley promptly sold the horse after his second win to top trainer Chad Brown, a native of Mechanicville. Twisted Tom opened 2017 with three straight wins, two of them in stakes, bringing his proud breeders on a ride to the Belmont Stakes.
“It’s the cherry on top,” Wilmot said. “It’s the feeling, sort of an affirmation, that we do have some idea of what we’re doing, that our program has merit, that it’s based in sound breeding principles. There is such a leap of faith in breeding horses. We take a lot of things into consideration: pedigree, of course; conformation; looking for a stallion to complement a mare. It’s guesswork and hopefully some times the gods smile on you.”
Since Saratoga Springs is such an important part of the Thoroughbred racing business, it is quite common for there to be ties locally to the winners of important races in America as well as internationally. This year there are an extraordinary number of links to three Triple Crown winners. Saratoga Springs-based West Point Thoroughbreds owns a percentage of Kentucky Derby hero Always Dreaming. The West Point group includes former New York Racing Association track announcer Tom Durkin, who lives much of the year in Saratoga. Colonie native and Saratoga homeowner William Lawrence is the co-owner of Cloud Computing, whom Brown prepared for his victory in the Preakness. It was the first Triple Crown race win for Brown, already an established star at the age of 38. Among the owners of Belmont Stakes winner Tapwrit is Brian Spearman a graduate of Saratoga Central Catholic High School and a Saratoga homeowner.
Wilmot was raised in Rochester and visited Saratoga Race Course with his parents in the 1950s. “It just blew me away way back when,” Wilmot said. “Fast forward to when I was training horses … I was stabled there and I just fell in love with the town, the racetrack, the magic.”
Taylor grew up around Boston and in New Jersey and visited Saratoga Springs with Wilmot for the first time in 1980 to attend the races. “Of course,” she said, “Saratoga is amazing and presents itself so well. Bill said, ‘Hey, if this relationship ever gets serious, this is where we’re living.'”
After spending most of the 1970s working on the track, and saddling 1975 Met Mile upset winner Gold and Myrrh, Wilmot enrolled in vet school in 1979. Two years later, he and Taylor purchased 200 acres of vacant land on Fitch Road that had once been part of a dairy farm. Their property is adjacent to McMahon Thoroughbreds, where 2003 Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Funny Cide was foaled.
“We decided that the rolling hills and the beautiful view were ideal for horses and a horse farm and a future home,” Taylor said. “There was absolutely nothing on the land. There were no roads, no buildings. You couldn’t get from one side of the pond to the other. We lived in town and were involved in our own veterinary practice but worked on developing the land and the buildings, did a lot of site work over the next 10 years and eventually had horses. It took a long time to develop it. Everything you see there has been our life’s work and building this dream of having a small but quality Thoroughbred breeding farm.”
At its peak, Stepwise Farm was home to about 30 horses. Taylor and Wilmot have downsized in recent years and are breeding three mares. The newest member of their band is Stormy Caress, a half-sister to West Coast, winner of the Easy Goer Stakes on the Belmont Stakes day program. The farm name came from a play on words. “First of all, it took us 10 years to develop this, so it was many steps to get there and realize our dream,” Taylor said. “No. 2, the horse business is a challenging business, so you want to step wisely in it.”
Using that careful approach, Taylor and Wilmot have found success through the years. Twisted Tom, the horse no one wanted, delivered something quite special.
“We have faith in the mare, faith in the family and a little lady luck on our side and eventually we were rewarded,” she said. “It’s all good.”
