American Pharoah takes Saratoga Springs by storm

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Just a half-hour north of Albany, the exit for Union Avenue beckons off I-87, aka the Northway. Enter and you immediately are drawn back in time. Horses have the right of way on the avenue between Saratoga Race Course and Oklahoma training track. Stay on Union Avenue beyond the track and massive Victorian homes with wraparound porches loom on the way into downtown, where you are greeted by Congress Park and Canfield Casino, both on the National Register of Historic places.

The shops and restaurants on Broadway have definitely been modernized, but the feeling around Saratoga never really changes. It is summer camp for horses. Horses are king during the 40-day race meet, which first began as a four-day run in August 1863. More than a million fans will have appeared at the track by the time this meet ends. Nobody is talking about Trump, Iran or the NFL in the "Spa City.'' If you are not talking about horses, you are not talking.

This week, they are all talking about American Pharoah, the star of the biggest race of the year in this quaint town surrounded by the Adirondack Mountains and just a half-hour south of Lake George. The Triple Crown winner arrived from Del Mar, Calif., promptly at 3 p. m. yesterday afternoon, more than 10 hours after leaving his barn.

"Traveling with Pharoah, they make it very convenient for us,'' said assistant trainer Jimmy Barnes, who accompanied the horse on the cross-country flight. "We're like the last one on to the plane and first one off.''

Barnes said cars were pulled over for the van on the trip from Albany Airport. The state trooper with the flashing lights in front kind of gave it away. A large crowd was gathered outside Barn 25, cameras ready for the moment the horse that finished off the Triple Crown downstate walked down the ramp.

"We're used to it,'' Barnes said. "This is just how it is when you travel with the Pharoah.''

The attendance for Saturday's 146th Travers Stakes was capped at 50,000 and the track announced a sellout a few weeks ago. America's oldest race track also happens to be its most popular, but it was never built for a crowd that might have approached 75,000 if it had not been limited.

John "Old Smoke" Morrissey, a gambler, boxer and eventually a congressman, of course, never could have imagined the scene when he opened the track during the Civil War. Richard Canfield, "The Prince of Gamblers,'' might be unhappy you have to go to the harness track for your casino gambling these days, but he would surely be pleased that his casino is a wonderful museum inside a wondrous park.

If Canfield were around, he definitely would be a member of the "Reading Room,'' at the corner of Union and Nelson Avenues on the edge of the race track grounds.

My friend Mark Hopkins is one of 420 members of the exclusive eating establishment that is only open during the meet. Over 40 years, he has moved all the way up to No. 21 on the seniority list.

"If I make it to No. 1 and I die the next day, I will have lived a great life,'' Hopkins said.

I think he was kidding. He was not kidding about how he drives his Rolls-Royce a few miles to breakfast every morning from his home off Nelson Avenue, a prime thoroughfare for horses entering and exiting the race track. He goes the back roads because he doesn't want his Rolls "to get any horsebleep on it.''

Only in Saratoga.

If Fitzgerald's Gatsby were alive and real in 2015 and living in Saratoga Springs instead of West Egg, he would no doubt be on Broadway just north of town on the way to Skidmore in Palazzo Riggi, the $6 million, 20,000-square foot mansion that emerged from a teardown, its owners trying to keep up with money so old it is between ancient and prehistoric.

Ron and Michele Riggi live there along with dozens of little dogs in a style that is so over the top that the top is always out of view. She dresses up as Cinderella on Halloween, dispensing Willy Wonka chocolate bars to trick or treaters.

Many year-round residents rent their houses during the racing season to pay their mortgages the rest of the year. The Riggis don't have that problem. They are quite involved in a very high society, supporting all the charitable causes. Michele seems to be society's heir apparent to the irreplaceable Marylou Whitney, whose smile has been frozen in place for half a century.

The nights are for restaurants like Sperry's and Chianti downtown and Siro's next to the track's clubhouse entrance, with time always allowed before bed to review the "Racing Form" in preparation for the next day's card. The famed mineral baths are just outside town in Saratoga Spa State Park, hard by SPAC (Saratoga Performing Arts Center), where the Philadelphia Orchestra just ended its annual run.

The Racing Hall of Fame is across Union Avenue from the track right up the street from the Fasig-Tipton Sales Pavilion, where the bidding on a yearling colt in August 2013 got to $300,000, a sum his owner deemed too small. So Ahmed Zayat kept American Pharoah and will race him on Saturday, searching for a ninth consecutive win on the way to his place in that Hall of Fame.

The only Triple Crown winner to win the Travers was Whirlaway in 1941. Affirmed finished first in 1978, but was disqualified. The first Travers in 1864 was won by a horse named Kentucky owned by a man named William Travers. The Travers is the Mid Summer Derby, the most important race for 3-year-olds outside the Triple Crown. It was won by Man o' War in 1920, a year after the great horse was given his only loss by Upset in the Sanford Stakes, also at Saratoga.

If American Pharoah does not win this Travers, it will be the biggest upset in the race since Triple Crown winner Gallant Fox was beaten by 100-1 Jim Dandy in the 1930 Travers. That was only 85 years ago, last week, in Saratoga Springs.