Monday, September 6, 2021

Summer's Getaway Day

Taken by the author on closing day in 2016

With each passing year, my connection to horse racing becomes weaker and weaker. I can name only a few of the prominent horses who are now in training. Sometimes on major race days I catch myself thinking, “Oh, the Pegasus is today. Maybe I’ll watch it.” With less frequency, I actually watch the race. I no longer look at a calendar and get excited knowing that, say, the Breeders’ Cup is coming up soon.

Although my feelings toward horse racing these days seesaw between indifference and disillusionment, closing day at Saratoga Race Course still evokes strong romantic and melancholic feelings inside me. Because it happens on Labor Day, the end of the Saratoga meet symbolically marks the end of summer, which makes me, a native of California now living in New England, lament the end of the season and dread the approaching winter. And as a former NYRA employee who worked six meets in Saratoga (2010-2014 and 2016), Labor Day causes me to reflect upon my time at the Spa. 


I was fortunate to have seen many great horses, jockeys, trainers, races, and moments in Saratoga. Blame nipping Quality Road on the wire in the Whitney, Blind Luck collaring Havre de Grace in the Alabama, the Travers dead heat, H. Allen Jerkens winning his final grade 1 and his final stakes, John Velazquez and Ramรณn Dominguez setting riding records, Tom Durkin concluding his career, and Arrogate emerging as a dominant force are just a few of those examples. Despite this, I felt ambivalent about Saratoga when I was working there full time. I remember feeling fatigued as I shuffled to the employee parking lot in the darkness at the end of a long Saturday, simultaneously feeling dread and excitement as I thought about having to be at the track early the next day for morning workouts. I remember scrambling to take care of all of my errands and chores on Tuesdays, the lone dark day. I remember struggling to get enough sleep, eat a healthy diet, or have a conversation about a topic other than racing.


Even though I was in my mid 20s and seldom stayed out late downtown, during my first summer in Saratoga I was not prepared for the physical toll that comes with working 6-7 days a week and by the midway mark of the meet there were times when I was feeling desperate to return to Belmont Park, sleep in my own apartment on Long Island, and use vacation days to do things that were not related to horse racing. In the following years at Saratoga I learned to take better care of myself physically and mentally, but I always felt a palpable sense of relief when the meet came to an end. I never did figure out how many of my coworkers and colleagues socialized, partied, handicapped, and gambled throughout the meet without succumbing to exhaustion. For me, Saratoga showed that there indeed can be too much of a good thing.


In 2014 I relocated to California to work at Golden Gate Fields. At my mother's house I found my copy of Finished Lines, an anthology of non-fiction writing about horse racing that had been given to me as a Christmas present when I was either 17 or 18. I reread one of the entries, “Getaway Days,” a chapter from Brendan Boyd’s book Racing Days. In "Getaway Days" Boyd wrote about how he became obsessed with racing and how he and his girlfriend decided to become backstretch workers before becoming burnt out and quitting. They then went to Saratoga and “went to the track every day, bet every race, had an ideal four weeks.” But for Boyd the romance was gone.


It was the perfect story, yet something about it had gone strange. Working at the track had depleted the story for me, had forced too much significance on it. Immersion in the betting life wasn’t reversing this process, it was deepening it. It was just too much.


When I left Saratoga I knew it was time to go on to something else, to leave the story alone, to stop enlarging it. I knew that if I didn’t, I risked losing it entirely, draining it of its true meaning, plundering the allegory. 


I wasn’t meant to be at the track all the time, I now realized. I was meant to think of myself as someone who could be.


I still think of that passage from time to time and almost always think about it on Labor Day. I find it impossible, to borrow a line from Boyd, to leave the story alone. I seldom regret having left my career in horse racing, but on closing day I find myself missing Saratoga summers. For one day a year, I think of myself as somebody who still could be at the track every day.


1 comment:

  1. Jon-- I wish I could comment here as eloquently as you do above about Saratoga in particular and horse racing in general. This is so good. More of your writing, please.

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