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Sean Clancy “What did you think of Saturday?”
It was a simple question, asked Sunday morning, after a long Saturday and longer Saturday night.
Like a lawnmower starting on one pull, I said what I thought of Travers Saturday. It lasted awhile.
“Are you going to write any of that?”
I hesitated.
“I should,” I said.
“Yeah, you should.”
Jimmy Jerkens walked from one end of his low-roofed barn to the other, stopping at each stall to talk about each occupant. With every stop, Jerkens began, “This is…” A man of few words, Jerkens, like his Hall of Fame father Allen, knows his horses, talking about one whose appetite is getting better, one who has a rub from a martingale and another who tries hard every time. (Editor’s note: Originally published in Aug. 20 issue of The Saratoga Special.)
It’s Saturday afternoon, as I sit down to write this. A blank page stares at me, the horses for the third race canter to the start, Tom Law handicaps Sunday’s races, Linzay Marks sketches a scene for an ad, Joe just walked in the office, he looks like a run-over dog, the interns – fresh off a 72-page deadline and a night out on Caroline Street – are at the races, ready to hammer out some of the words to issue number 29. As I write this, the Travers lies in wait, five hours away.
Dr. John Chandler stood alone. Facing away from the racetrack, across from the finish line, Juddmonte Farm’s president gazed from the step of the front-row box, mouth agape, smiling but silent, like he had heard a good joke but wasn’t sure he could tell it.
Bob Baffert careened between the two front rows of the clubhouse boxes, pivoted to go down the steps and then saw Chandler, still standing, smiling, silent.
Of all the mornings on the backside of Saratoga, it might be my favorite. It was pouring, only the diehards had come out, huddled and hovered under the awning of the Morning Line Kitchen on Travers morning. All of us should have gone home, but somehow stayed, wasting and preserving time all at the same time.
We are at the stage where solitude is sought. So many conversations, so little sleep, so many late deadlines, so few square meals, so many requests, so little peace.
Driving the golf cart in the morning has its plusses, you can escape, until someone grabs the windshield stanchion and won’t let go. You get stuck, listening to stories about their first time to Saratoga, fielding suggestions for things we should write in the paper, hearing about one more poor-poor-pitiful-me gambling lament.
“He’s the last one. The last good Flying Zee horse.”
That’s how Phil Serpe described Weekend Hideaway, winner of a Monday allowance race. It was said in passing, as Serpe walked toward his barn and my golf cart went wherever it was going. Looking back on it, I don’t know if it was before or after the 6-year-old son of Speightstown earned his 11th victory in a tough New York-bred allowance Monday, pushing his earnings to over $800,000.
There is no walk like it in sports. Two thick red lines mark the path, as it burrows through bettors and drinkers under the clubhouse, descends a few feet, past the hand stampers and around the bend, past the red railing where the gate crew hangs, then slices diagonally right, past the bands and the dancers, between the food stands, through the charbroiled burger smell, then juts back to the left past the administrative offices, through the jocks’ agents and wives waiting for celebration or commiseration, then a hard right into the sanctuary of the Saratoga jocks’ room.
Ralph Nicks resides in the same barn as last year, nestled below the trees between Barclay Tagg and Mark Hennig, a winding walk from the Morning Line Kitchen.
Last year, The Special hit the old new kid on the block as Nicks was back in Saratoga for the first time in years. It was about his return. Nicks had 12 horses – 12 ripened and ready for a strong show. (Editor’s note: Originally published in July 29 issue of The Sarartoga Special.)
Mike Smith swelled up his chest after Songbird won a battle with Carina Mia in the Coaching Club American Oaks July 24.
“My mare’s never had to dig, you know what it does to champions sometimes,” he said. “All of a sudden, they’ve got some new air.”
