Before the 2022 Saratoga racing meet, NYRA found itself in a bit of a predicament. About a week before opening day, legendary bugler Sam Grossman, who’d played the “Call to Post” at Saratoga Race Course for some 25 years, backed out due to health concerns. Luckily, Grossman didn’t leave NYRA completely high and dry. He put in a call to his friend, Saratoga Lake resident and trumpeter Tony Gambaro, to see if he’d take over the iconic role: red vest, bowtie, top hat…the works. Gambaro considered the ask and said yes on one condition: He’d do it only if his son, fellow trumpeter and college student Carson, was involved, too.
While the initial stipulation was logistical—Tony couldn’t commit to all 40 days of the Saratoga meet and needed Carson to cover for him—it turned into a PR boon for NYRA. At a last-minute venue walkthrough the day before the track opened for the season, NYRA’s press team had each trumpeter play the “Call to Post” solo. Then, just for fun, they had them play it together. “Mark Bardack from Ed Lewi Associates said ‘I don’t need to hear or see another thing,’” Tony says. “‘I need both of your cell phone numbers. Be here at 6 in the morning for interviews with channels 6, 10 and 13.’ It just exploded.”
Two years later, Tony and Carson have made the Saratoga bugler post(s) more popular than ever, in large part thanks to the work they put in between races. While they need to be in the winner’s circle before every race to perform a certain 34 notes, they spend the rest of their day running around the track playing all sorts of tunes—“Happy Birthday” for a party in the 1863 Club, The Godfather song as a joke for some guy’s buddy from New Jersey, or a college alma mater for a horse owner and his friends. (Yes, they learned a college alma mater with only a day’s notice.) And while some days you’ll see only one of them at the track, more often than not, they’re performing together.
In fact, Tony and Carson are usually together, even off the track. When Carson isn’t announcing high school track meets (he recently graduated with a broadcasting degree from the Newhouse School at Syracuse University and dreams of announcing track and field events at the Olympic level), he’s either helping his dad out with his boat detailing business or performing with him in the Ten Most Wanted Band, whose busy season just so happens to align with the Saratoga racing season. “The hardest part about working together,” Carson says, “is him having to get me out of bed to get to the track.”
For Tony, the track gig is a job, but it’s also an opportunity to spend quality time with his son. “He busts my chops here and there, and I tell him not to walk in front of me—it’s a pecking order,” Tony jokes. “We just have a lot of fun with people. People at the track are happy to begin with. We’re just making them happier.”