Scott Jagow of the Paulick Report filed this “video postcard from Saratoga”…
From racing patrons in the video:
“And it’s just something so special, that you can take your kids out in the ‘backyard’ with a cooler and have a picnic…and it’s all good.”
“It’s maybe the only place on Earth I know where people actually walk around with smiles on their faces all the time, win or lose.”
“This cocktail of great racing, an enchanting town, the history, it all adds up to be just a great experience every day.”
The mawkish piano music at the video’s end reminds viewers that the bittersweet farewell has arrived once more. Here, though, is my return postcard to all those who long ago succumbed to the rotten bill of goods that is horseracing. The videos below may be called many things, but “surreal” and “calming” are not among them. This is the fate awaiting many, if not most, of Saratoga’s darlings, who upon arrival at places like Bouvry Exports must wonder, in their own equine way, wherever the adoring eyes of summer have gone.
Roughly 30,000 Thoroughbreds die like this each year, a real-life consequence of an enchanting day at the old racetrack…
