You would possibly consider Saratoga Race Course as a theater.
There is the backstage space, recognized in racing because the backstretch. In the morning, well-to-do horse homeowners combine with trainers, train riders and grooms as they put together for the afternoon present. Horses are washed and brushed. Tours come by means of with curious followers eyeballing the entire scene.
On the opposite aspect of the curtain is the racetrack, the place costly thoroughbreds race for tens of hundreds of {dollars}, or extra, 10 instances a day, and the grandstand, which has its personal mingling of hard-core horseplayers alongside native households on an affordable time out.
Fans arrive in the early morning hours to stake out a picnic desk, whose worth soars practically to priceless by the point racing begins. On a giant day, area is at a premium, with the well-heeled and dressed-up sitting in non-public packing containers with names like Whitney and Phipps on them and the much less lucky scrambling for a spot on the rail.
Once a four-week dash, Saratoga’s race assembly has grown so fashionable that it has been expanded to just about eight weeks, with the nation’s most vital summer time racing. The greatest race, the Travers Stakes on Aug. 26, was gained by Arcangelo, the Belmont Stakes winner, defeating Mage, the Kentucky Derby winner, and National Treasure, the Preakness winner.
Still, the celebratory temper has been dampened by the deaths of a dozen horses, which has sparked medical reforms and consideration of a change to the monitor’s floor.
The meet ends on Monday with the Hopeful Stakes, for 2-year-olds whose homeowners are dreaming of subsequent yr’s Triple Crown and Travers.
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