Saratoga’s Busiest Summer in History Moves to the High-Profile Race Meet

[Wandering Eyes]

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – And now for the main event.

With nine days of racing already in the books–a proper warmup by any measure, topped by the GI Belmont Stakes–the 157th season of racing at Saratoga begins Thursday with a 10-race program. It is the earliest-possible start in the calendar-driven schedule for the 40-day season that closes on Labor Day Sept. 1.

For 44 years after racing resumed at Saratoga in 1946 following World War II, Saratoga was what eventually came to be known as a boutique meet of 24 programs, six days a week over four weeks. The season often started and ended in August, hence the marketing slogan “The August Place to Be.” Saratoga's burgeoning popularity in the 1970s and 1980s prompted the New York Racing Association to expand the meet to 30 days in 1990, then to 36 and finally to 40 in 2009.

Four days were added in 2024 to accommodate the inaugural Belmont Stakes at Saratoga Festival, which was held upstate for the first time while Belmont Park is undergoing a massive rebuild. This year, a fifth day was added to the Belmont Festival and NYRA conducted the four-day July 4 Racing Festival last weekend. Those mini meets, technically part of the Belmont-at-the-Big A season, featured 12 Grade I races.

By the time that the Saratoga meet draws to a close, a total of 49 days of racing spread over four months, with more than 500 races, will have been staged over America's oldest track. As has been the case for decades, the $1.25-million GI Travers on Aug. 23 and the $1-million GI Whitney on Aug. 2 are the marquee events of the highest-profile meet in North America. There will be 18 Grade I races as part of the 64-stakes menu worth more than $20 million in total purses.

Hall of Fame trainer Mark Casse said he made his first visit to Saratoga 54 years ago with his father Norman, the well-respected horseman and sales executive. Through his life and career, Casse has watched Saratoga grow in importance. His stable had a strong performance at Saratoga last summer: a record of 15-4-7 and earnings of $1.264 million from 53 starts.

Mark Casse | Sarah Andrew

Casse chuckled as he said that he told a friend over the weekend: “When you win in a lot of places, a small group sees. When you win at Saratoga, the world sees.”

Trainer Bill Mott, the nine-time training champ at Saratoga during his distinguished Hall of Fame career, has the nation's leading 3-year-old in his care, Godolphin's Sovereignty (Into Mischief), winner of the GI Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes. He expects the colt to prep for the Travers in the GII Jim Dandy on July 26. It is possible that the Travers could be another showdown between Sovereignty, GI Preakness Stakes winner Journalism (Curlin) and Baeza (McKinzie), who finished in that order in the Derby and the Belmont.

Mott has been a regular at Saratoga since 1987 and his stable is based next to the Oklahoma training track from spring to late fall. Mott said the Saratoga season has a special feel to it.

“It always has,” he said. “Very much. Much more than any other meet.”

However, with the two extra weeks of racing this year, Mott said that the run-up to the launch of the season is out of ordinary.

“Well, a little bit because of the length of it,” he said. “Yeah, it's a little different.”

Sovereignty | Sarah Andrew

This is the 12th summer that Jason Fitch and his brothers will operate King's Tavern across Union Avenue from the main entrance to the track. They also run the City Tavern on Caroline Street downtown. Fitch said the Belmont Stakes and July 4 festivals have altered the normal rhythm for Saratoga and racing.

“It's funny, because I think a lot of people are confused,” he said. “Confused in a good way, though. Belmont was great for us again this year with the rain. The rain actually helped us, believe it or not. Obviously, if it rained all day, it would have been bad.”

Fitch said the rain early in the day slowed down the arrival of the crowd, which enabled his staff to better handle the business coming through the door. Last year, he said the tavern was “jam packed” from morning until night.

“Once the rain stopped, it was mayhem, which is great,” he said. “So, Belmont was Belmont. There was a lot of buzz around the track about that just because, obviously, it's the Belmont.”

Fitch said that the July 4 weekend was certainly not the same as the Belmont Stakes festival or the regular season. NYRA announced that the total paid attendance for the four days was 52,156 with an on-track handle of $9.5 million.

“Just talking to people, there were kind of mixed reviews,” he said. “They were kind of torn between going to the Spa and watching the horses or going to the boat for the fireworks. We have a lot of friends that did half days, a half day at the race course, and then went out to the boats or home for barbecues. We definitely saw a good influx of business at King's and the City Tavern, which was great. It's always positive to have positive numbers. But I think there is some confusion with 'does my heart belong at the racetrack, or does my heart belong on the boat for the Fourth?' Either way, it was a great weekend for us. There were more people in town for the Fourth than when it's just the Fourth of July celebration.”

Saratoga | Sarah Andrew

Fitch said some of the conversations he had with patrons focused on whether a 22-percent increase in racing days from 2023 to this summer might not be a positive. That has been a common talking point locally as the meet has grown in length over 35 years: How much is too much?

No doubt, the key stats remain strong. Even though the 2024 meet was reduced by one day because of bad weather caused by the remnants of Tropical Storm Debby, NYRA reported typically solid attendance and handle figures. All-sources handle of $803,806,964 eclipsed the $799,229,288 from 2023, a 3.2 percent gain. Minus the one day, the total paid attendance was 1,051,092, down 2.5 percent from the previous year.

As always, racing is a slave to the weather. Despite losing a full day from the meet, NYRA benefitted from an important stat: it moved 20 fewer races from the turf to the dirt–65 to 45–than it did in 2023. The off-the-turf switches due to wet conditions produce many scratches and hurt handle.

Saratoga draws the stars and builds reputations every summer. Last year, seven of the 11 horses that earned Eclipse Award titles, led by Horse of the Year 'TDN Rising Star' Thorpedo Anna (Fast Anna), competed at least once at the Spa. That championship lineup also featured Immersive (Nyquist), 'TDN Rising Star' Sierra Leone (Gun Runner), National Treasure (Quality Road), Idiomatic (Curlin), Soul of an Angel (Atreides) and Moira (Ghostzapper).

Thorpedo Anna training at Saratoga last fall | Sarah Andrew

Thorpedo Anna rebounded from the first off-the-board finish in her career in the GI La Troienne Stakes to win the GII Fleur de Lis Stakes. She is on course to the GI Personal Ensign on Aug. 23.

Five-time Eclipse Award winner Chad Brown will seek his fifth-straight Saratoga training title and eighth overall. His 45 victories last summer doubled the runners-up Todd Pletcher–who has led the standings a record 14 times–and Mike Maker, and was one shy of the track record he set in 2018.

Irad Ortiz, Jr. secured his third-consecutive riding title and sixth overall with 52 victories. He had a comfortable advantage over Flavien Prat, who finished with 45 wins. Prat had a record-breaking season at the Spa, though, with 18 stakes victories, surpassing the mark of 15 shared by Ortiz, Jr., Joel Rosario and John Velazquez.

Two Saratoga stalwarts for decades, trainers Christophe Clement and D. Wayne Lukas, passed away in recent months. Lukas, 89, was the leading trainer six times and won 266 races, fifth on the all-time list. Clement, 59, won with his second Saratoga starter, Coxwold, in August 1992 and his next-to-last runner, Big Invasion (Declaration of War), in the Harvey Pack on Sept. 2, 2024.

NYRA tweaked its stakes schedule for 2025. The most notable changes involved three Grade I races. The Fourstardave was moved ahead one week to the Whitney Day program and the Sword Dancer was relocated from Travers Day to two weeks earlier to fill the slot vacated by the Fourstardave. The Personal Ensign, previously run on the Friday before the Travers, was dropped into the Travers program. Worth noting is that NYRA ran the Schuylerville and the Sanford during the July 4 festival, a week or so earlier than usual, stretching out the 2-year-old stakes program. That might produce more entries in the second legs of the series, the GIII Adirondack and the GII Saratoga Special.

Trainer Cherie DeVaux won the GI New York Stakes with her stable star She Feels Pretty (Karakontie {Jpn}) during the Belmont Stakes Festival and will saddle her again Saturday in the GI Diana. DeVaux was born in Saratoga Springs and lived there until her family moved when she was in kindergarten. She began her career in racing as a hotwalker, climbed the ladder to assistant trainer and launched her own stable in 2018. She won her first Saratoga race in 2019. Last summer she finished 10th on the trainer's earnings table with $1,021,400 from a record of 5-10-7.

Now based at Barn 83, Lukas's home starting in 1988, she said she is looking forward to the meet. It won't be all business, though, since her parents live in nearby Glens Falls, and her younger sister, Adrianne, has horses at Saratoga in what is her first full year as a trainer.

“It's exciting,” DeVaux said. “I love it that nothing changes the environment that's here, the excitement. This is kind of the kickoff of the championship part of the year, getting horses ready for Breeders' Cup and the campaign is getting started for us, as well. So, very excited. Excited for what we're bringing. It should be a good time.”

For Jason Fitch and his staff, the upcoming eight-plus weeks will be the busiest of the year. He said there is the standard high level of anticipation for the racing season.

“I think so. One hundred percent,” he said. “You see more and more people going across to the Oklahoma, lining up just to see them run around the Oklahoma. It's special. The buzz is definitely there.”

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