Sean Clancy

Charlie Lopresti stood in front of the big screen with Reeve McGaughey, Kelly Wheeler and Damien Rock to watch the Fourstardave early Saturday evening. 

Tweed coat folded over his right arm, just a few feet to the right of Get Stormy’s trainer Tom Bush, Lopresti watched confidently as his Wise Dan found a stalking spot, then trepidly as Wise Dan got bottled up on the turn, then awed as Wise Dan snuck inside Get Stormy, passing the eighth pole in overdrive. Wise Dan opened up effortlessly, accelerating through the yielding turf to win by 5 lengths. Strides before the wire, Lopresti began walking, fist held high, then slammed it down like a high school principal handing out a detention.

It was 1990. John Velazquez and I were kids in the jocks’ room, trying to make it in Saratoga. I think Snook had his tack, straight ahead in the old room, I was just down the wall with Denny McCabe and Chop Chop. I’d come in twice a week, spend four hours in the box and four minutes on the track. Velazquez came in every day, went about his business, quiet, focused, his only mistake was when he made premature five-wide moves on the turf (he learned).

So, how’s it going up there? Nearing the halfway point, the question is asked over and over, from a variety of sources.

Same leg, straight from geometry class. Same foot, angled just right in the stirrup. Same back, upright and pure. Same hands, firm but free. He sits on a horse like he’s in a Paul Brown sketch.

I miss seeing the Chief on his pony. But I love seeing him in his cart. Early Friday morning, the Chief, H. Allen Jerkens, rolls to a stop, near the three-quarter pole of the main track.

Dave Duggan stood at the big-screen TV in the clubhouse, minutes ticking down before the A.P. Smithwick Steeplechase, Thursday’s co-feature.

Kiaran McLaughlin watched the Jim Dandy, isolated and alone in a fourth-row box. Traditionally, a big-screen viewer in the clubhouse, McLaughlin changed it up for Saturday’s Grade II stakes, winding up in a box, alone and in awe.

Jock’s agent Mike Sellito took Jose Santos to the top (or, perhaps, back to the top). He took Kent Desormeaux to the top (again, back to the top). They are both Hall of Famers and Sellito was, at least somewhat, responsible for their latter-day achievements.

My friend Richard Valentine asked the question, innocuously, innocently, matter-of-factly, “Do you still get that same feeling when you drive into Saratoga?”

“Well, I’ve been turnstiled, junkpiled and railroaded too . . . I’ve been laid low but don’t you know . . . “