The Week in Review: Adding Dates to Saratoga, a Case of Too Much of a Good Thing

Saratoga works for many reasons. The combination of great racing, a historic venue, iconic races like the GI Whitney S. and the GI Travers are reasons why more than one million fans file through the turnstiles every meet and the handle for the season now tops $800 million.

But Saratoga's success also has a lot to do with its exclusivity. It's only open for eight weeks and there are just 40 racing days. That, as much as anything else, is what makes it special. There's an opening day and there is a closing day. Saratoga doesn't gets stale.

But somewhere there is a tipping point. There has to be. And it appears that the New York Racing Association is going to put that to the test once again.

NYRA CEO and President Dave O'Rourke told reporters over the weekend that discussions have begun that could lead to even more racing and even more racing dates in 2025, due to the ongoing construction at Belmont. The idea is to take the final weekend of the 2025 Belmont at Aqueduct meet and add that to the Saratoga schedule. They are also talking about adding a fifth day onto the GI Belmont S. Festival in June.

NYRA has yet to work out all the details and any changes must be approved by its board and the New York Gaming Commission, but O'Rourke sure sounded like someone who wants there to be more Saratoga.

“That requires Board approval,” O'Rourke told the TDN's Mike Kane when asked about adding days to the season. “That requires state approval. You're just asking me, what's on the table, what we're thinking about? That's one of the things we're thinking about.”

O'Rourke said the extra dates wouldn't necessarily mean a longer Saratoga meet because the early July dates would technically fall under the Belmont meet, which is being held at Aqueduct until the new Belmont Park is ready to open for business. That, however, is simply a matter of semantics. Extra Saratoga dates, no matter what you want to call them, means more Saratoga.

For more than 100 years, Saratoga was always a four-week meet that featured 24 days of racing. In the nineties, NYRA began to increase the number of days at the meet. In 2019, NYRA settled on what is the current format, an eight-week, 40-day meet. You could hardly blame them. The Saratoga meet had turned into a cash cow and running there as opposed to Belmont or Aqueduct means a substantial amount of extra revenue from betting handle.

But at what cost? The quality of the everyday racing has gone downhill since NYRA began adding on dates. At eight weeks, the meet, by the time it's over, can seem like a long slog. But because so much more is bet on racing at Saratoga when compared to Belmont and Aqueduct figures, NYRA, one could argue, is doing its job by maximizing revenue.

But at some point, this has got to stop. If you expand next year, what's next? Will Saratoga ultimately be open from the July 4 weekend all the way through Labor Day? Or from the Belmont weekend to Labor Day? That has always loomed as a possibility.  At one point this will no longer qualify as a boutique meet. Nine, 10 weeks. Fifty days of racing. Sure that would mean more money for NYRA, but being that NYRA is a not-for-profit company, they should care about both being good stewards of the sport and the bottom line.

I was also against the expansion to eight weeks, but will now admit that it has worked about better than I had ever imagined. NYRA has found the right formula in eight weeks–40 days. It is a lot of racing and a lot of days, but Saratoga, even with all the extra days of racing, has remained special. So why would a few extra days matter? They may not, but NYRA is pressing its luck. The public has spoken. People gravitate to the tracks that have short meets (think Keeneland and Kentucky Downs). At some point, the goose no longer lays the golden egg.

It was a good meet at Saratoga and the fact that there was only one breakdown during the races is a credit to NYRA and its veterinary team. The Travers was the race of the year and the attendance and handle numbers have held steady over the last four, five years. There's nothing to fix.

The Euros Win the Nashville Derby

There should be a lot of trainers in Europe who are kicking themselves after the running of the $3.1-million GIII Nashville Derby Invitational at Kentucky Downs. Attracting European horses to the meet is still a work in progress and only two were entered in the Nashville Derby. But that was enough. The victory went to Bellum Justum (Ire) (Sea the Stars {Ire}), whose credentials in Europe were modest. He was second in the G3 Gordon Stakes in his start before the Kentucky Downs race.  Probably not among the 50 most talented horses in Europe, he defeated Carson's Run (Cupid), the best 3-year-old grass horse in the U.S., by 2 1/4 lengths for the team of Frankie Dettori and trainer Andrew Balding.

Perhaps some of the European trainers are scared off by the fact that non-Kentucky breds do not earn as much at Kentucky Downs as do the Kentucky-breds. But Balding was smart enough to figure out that, even with a smaller slice of the pie, running in the Nashville made sense. His colt earned $1,054,310 with the victory in the type of payday that he could never dream of having if racing in Europe.

There will be a bigger contingent of European shippers for Saturday's card, which features six stakes, every one of them valued at $2 million. Those races attracted six European shippers, including three from the Aidan O'Brien stable. The list of European horses running that day includes the Charlie Hills-trained Ancient Rome (War Front), who will be looking to win the GIII Mint Millions S. for the second straight year. He is a Kentucky-bred.

European grass horses are simply better than American turf horses, something that trainers from Ireland, France and Great Britain should be looking to exploit more and more at Kentucky Downs.

How Florent Geroux Stole the Flower Bowl

It may seem inconceivable, but a Chad Brown-trained horse went off at 31-1 in the GII Flower Bowl S. at Saratoga. The bettors dismissed the Brown-trained Idea Generation (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}) after she finished a lackluster fifth in a first-level allowance race in her previous start. Little did anyone know that the opposing riders were all going to fall sleep and gift-wrap the win for Idea Generation.

Jockey Florent Geroux put his filly on the lead and she opened up by six lengths after the opening half-mile. The pace was glacial, something that happens far too often in grass stakes at the NYRA tracks. The early fractions were 2:6.08, :51.92, 1:18.20. With that kind of trip, she was able to beat some horses that are clearly better, like runner-up War Like Goddess (English Channel), who closed late, but couldn't catch the runaway winner. Credit to Geroux, the only jockey in the race that was smart enough to figure out that taking the lead would enhance his chances.

Lukas Gets His Saratoga Winner

Wayne Lukas couldn't have been happy with the meet he had at Saratoga. He won just two races from 33 starters, but the second of two winners was special. On Monday, Lukas won the first race, a maiden special weight for 3-year-olds and upward, with Daily Grind (Medaglia d'Oro). He did so on his 89th birthday. Remarkable.