Table of Contents
Acknowledgements |
ix |
Chapter |
|
1 Only in Saratoga |
1 |
2 They Bet the Wrong Horse |
7 |
3 Last Dance |
25 |
4 Left Behind |
37 |
5 Angel |
55 |
6 Dave |
73 |
7 Oops |
91 |
8 Lightning Strikes |
109 |
9 Fall from Grace |
115 |
10 California Dreamers |
121 |
11 The End of the World |
134 |
12 Nose Jobs |
143 |
13 Thirty-Six and Counting |
149 |
14 An Unfunny Travers |
157 |
15 Another Four Bite the Dust |
169 |
My Own Saratoga Tale |
179 |
Index |
185 |
Excerpt
Chapter 1
Only in Saratoga
"If it can happen, it happens at Saratoga," 74-year-old George Cassidy, the long-time starter for the New York Racing Association, said, August 8, 1980.
He knew better than anyone. The day before at historic Saratoga Race Course, Cassidy, who followed his father into the profession and started horses for 51 years at Saratoga, Belmont Park, Aqueduct Racetrack and Jamaica, had made the second mistake of an otherwise distinguished career spanning some 125,000 races. With the filly Move It Now, the final horse in the 1980 Dewitt Clinton Stakes, about to enter her outside stall in the starting gate, Cassidy pressed the button, sending most, but not all, of the horses on their way. Move It Now's jockey, Ruben Hernandez, looked stunned behind the starting gate. Everybody was stunned, Cassidy included.
"The last - and only - mistake I made was right here at Saratoga 24 years ago," he told Tom Cunningham, the sports director of the Albany Times Union, the next day. "I had a horse behind a van which carried officials to the starting gate. I sent the field away without him."
To his considerable credit, Cassidy took complete responsibility for his second mistake, which triggered an unprecedented series of events, including the re-running of the stakes race without Move It On, who was injured in the interim.
Saratoga Race Course has been saturated with unprecedented events since its unlikely opening in the middle of the Civil War, August 3, 1863. Saratoga's unique Victorian charm and hallowed traditions have been attracting racing fans to Saratoga Springs every summer for 14 decades. In 1999, Sports Illustrated named Saratoga Race Course as "one of the Top Ten sporting venues in the world." Two years later, ESPN Magazine called Saratoga "the loveliest racetrack in the country." Nobody, perhaps, said it better than the brilliant sports columnist Red Smith, who once offered directions to Saratoga Race Course in a column: "From New York City, you drive north for about 175miles, turn left on Union Avenue and go back 100 years."
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