Sean Clancy

“If we had a boss…” Tom Law began.

And I cut him off, which I’m prone to do. Looking back on it, I have no idea what he was going to say, but I knew what I was going to say.

“If we had a boss . . . they wouldn’t let us do this. They wouldn’t let us do any of this,” I said, as we drove our golf cart through the harness track looking for Desmond Farrell, Lars Becdelamotte, Bill Hickey, Eddie Miller, Joe Parker and any other little guy for the Little Guy Stable Tour (see page 7). “They’d have us maximizing revenue, filing reports for HR and holding editorial planning meetings. They definitely wouldn’t have let us run a 5K this morning, with one more paper still to go.”

We’d sleep in the living room, at least, try to sleep. Somehow, we thought it was better to sleep downstairs, on couches and two chairs pushed together, better to slip out in the middle of the night. Pillows, blankets, duffel bags ready to go. Dad woke us up at midnight. He always shipped at night, better for the horses.

Richard Farquhar, dressed in tweeds with a pint of Guinness in his hand, said he was going to “walk the courses” for charity.

I looked at him, a pint of Guinness in my hand, and thought ‘that’s cool, you’re going to walk once around each racecourse in England for charity.’ Like tossing a dollar in the bucket on the way out of the races, a token gesture, a conscience clearer, an effort but not an exploit. Then he explained further, that it was going to take 13 months, covering 3,000 miles.

I dropped my Guinness.

Time to define. How will Saratoga 2015 be defined?

A lot of ways, for a lot of people – some good, some bad, some career-changing, some life-altering. We don’t look at stats about handle, attendance, fan enhancement or economic impact. We look at the human and equine impact.

Here are a few…

Edgar Prado returned to Saratoga to win the Grade 1 King’s Bishop on the Travers undercard Saturday.

The Hall of Fame jockey allowed Runhappy to gradually reach the lead from the outside post, it could have taken strides but Prado doled it out over 2 furlongs. Runhappy opened up 2 lengths on the turn, but Prado still sat like a bee was buzzing around his ear. Straightening into the stretch, Prado began to pump, rhythmical, steady, elbows low like always, weight deep in his heels, butt down, a commercial for core strength. Prado waved his whip right-handed, smacked the longshot twice and hand-rode him to the wire. At the wire, Prado stood up, no pump, no celebration, just another notch on his belt, another line on his Hall of Fame plaque.

Where will you be Monday?

Saratoga? Belmont Park? At a desk? On the lake?

Chris Humber will be at Les Landes, Jersey. Not New Jersey, the island of Jersey, in the Channel Islands, 19 miles off the French coast and 85 miles south of the English coast. Humber will become the first person to pull the Saturday/Monday-Saratoga/Jersey double. Humber came to Saratoga to cheer on his filly, New Providence, in the Ballston Spa Saturday evening. Sunday night, he will fly from New York, land at Gatwick Airport Monday morning, catch a plane to Guernsey, then fly his plane to Jersey for closing day of the season at Les Landes.