Saratoga Photos , Whitney Week 2021.
 

Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony
 

My roll was correct.
 

Random Track Walks.
 

So good.
 

I'm very pleased that I went. I have more pictures of the dirty.



I'm posting more later this week.
If you feel compelled to post in the picture thread,
Do not quote my picture posts please. It results in people looking at the same pictures.

Be neat, be clean, hit reply, not quote. Thanks.

it doesn't get any better than that track and the town..

thanks for all the pictures, wish I was there.

Whitney week was the one I was planning to attend, but sometimes life gets in the way. Thanks for sharing the photos.

Thanks for sharing Suff. It was an incredible week. Looking over the paddock late in the afternoon Sunday I was just thinking what a privilege to be there. Just terrific.

Awesome pics.

Great pix Suff and thanks for reminding everyone not to quote your full pic post :ThmbUp:

I assumed. Still I held 2 seats for you hoping to play a few races together. I sent you a souvenir Saratoga cork screw. Lmk you find it.

I'm all about it. Flight up delayed, my flight back canceled, by email and a 300 minute wait to speak to someone at jet blue😆.

I said f'k it, I checked into the Community Court, stayed the night and solved the travel problem with online chat in about 30 minutes.

Great photos!!!

Thanks for sharing. Have only been to the Spa once...need to get back!!!

SVC Suff.
Enjoyed all the Pics. :)

Five Points Market
 

I noticed in one of the pics was Five Points Market. Didn’t they permanently close last year ? There are definitely articles online that confirmed this. Glad to see they were able to stay open ?

Pretty sure they reopened under new management. Website is live and has what I’d say are some chi chi sandwich choices the old place wouldn’t have had.

Though I couldn't make it this year, suff sent me some very nice things from Saratoga. Much appreciated!

I bumped Into Bob Baffert outside the Hall of Fame induction ceremonies. Him and 2 others were holding signs calling for Baffert to be removed from the hall of Fame.:popcorn:

I'll use story time to tell you why it was probably ok you didn't go.

Airlines are on Tilt. You can't book any flight and assume it's going to go smoothly, if at all.

My flight to Albany was delayed, causing me to miss the Wed. card. People were sleeping 2 nights in Fort Lauderdale airport. I saw people laying everywhere as if Florida had had a hurricane.

My flight back canceled by email, while offering me no options, rebooking in the jet blue app was disabled, 3 hour wait for phone support.

Given your situation, you need a smooth travel experience and it's likely that wouldn't have happened.


2nd story:

I was wallet raped by the Brentwood.

$1997.50 for 4 nights. I come back from the track Thursday .....my room is still dirty. Office is locked, but someone willing to talk to me through the glass.

It went like this:

Sorry no guest are allowed in the office.

Sorry, no in-stay maid service due to Covid!

Me:

What!! Wtf 500 a night you aren't cleaning my room???

Them:
No.

What about towels?

I can hand you clean towels through the window.



Me:
What about a
the bicycles? I wanted to bike around town but I see them covered and chained up?

Them:

No bicycles due to Covid.

Fast forward Saturday morning.

Peter Fornatale is doing his podcast in the office! And his guests says, great to be here I just flew in on the red eye from LA.

Me to myself:. What a mf'n minute! I have to ask for towels through a window like I'm staying at a YMCA and theyre in there for an hour doing a podcast and one of them just got off a plane?

The reasoning they conjured up was illogical so I won't even type it.


I don't believe any hotel had their pools open and it was 85° all week. We got beautiful stunning weather.

In summary. Don't travel unless you absolutely have to.



I'm going back to Saratoga Aug 31 until September 6th for closing week. Given the current environment, I'm going to book an Airbnb at last minute because I'm speculating cancelations might happen this and next week.

On Friday , the festival Tent was empty and the track was packed. I asked and was told a big group from Clifton Park made a deposit, but never paid the balance and didn't show up. I expect more of that.

Suddenly image urls are not working on pace advantage?.. Getting a site security error.

This qualifies for CANNOT MAKE IT UP.
 

More dumping on the Brentwood.

I took a large NY Yankee. The 🚽 need some after care. I look around, no toilet brush.

Why ? They removed all HIGH-TOUCH items from the room. No pens, no notepad, no toilet brush, no cleaning supplies.... Due to Covid.

Robbery in progress.
 

Brentwood blow me.

No restock mini bar. Meaning, u have a ☕ and 🥨, you have to go to the window to get next day snacks.

Imagine you restock your own mini-bar and they charge you to use it😂.

And another thing
 

Airlines f'off.

They've added to the pre-flight instruction, where they stand there and show you how to buckle a seat belt...now they say: Blah, blah " don't speak or behave inappropriately towards the flight crew".

Hard to hear that after they twisted me both ways.

A good friend of racing and Saratoga recently finished a good history of the oval and it is available here. https://www.amazon.com/Summit-Champi.../dp/0976396505

The author works for the Saratogian newspaper and is cousin to Alydar's trainer John Veitch.

He arranged for my presenting a blanket to the winner of a race (from the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame) on Alabama Day 2011 and showed us all around the town. He is a voting member at both the US and Canadian Halls of Fame and a very knowledgeable fellow

Do me a favor. Call your friend and tell him the Brentwood sucks.:lol:

Patience Tolerance Humility. When I can.
 

This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to leave it here.

I'm taking one for the team.. I'm not leaving a 1 star review on 5 review sites. I'm not tracking down the owner's, who live in Brooklyn and are known.

The whole world is f'd up. I'm chalking it up to my contribution to the local economy. I enjoyed the trip. Actually I had a great time. Great little town.


Onward and upward.

Suff it’s great you have a positive attitude after how your trip was in regards to plane and motel.

I’m a bit confused though. When you booked the rooms were you aware of the cost of 500 a night or did that spontaneously change ? Based on pictures alone I don’t think I would have paid half that. Was there nothing else available ? I feel the Airbnb route will be a much better experience . I’m shocked by the strict guidelines and amenities challenges. All of that should have been made transparent when booking.

Hope your next stay goes much smoother.

Hospitality Business.
 

True - exactly as it happens.
 

1st evening , Wednesday, I'm sitting alone at a small fire pit, 11pm. The office door opens, a women walks out holding a bucket.

She walks up to the fire and dumps 2 gallons of water on it. Without saying a single word!😜. Just dumps the bucket of water and turns around to go back in the office. Not a word! 😂.

I say..why you put that out..?

We don't leave it going after 11.

Walks inside, comes out 2 minutes later with the bucket full again...and does the same thing. Dumps the water and goes back into the office... While not saying a word .. 😂. F'n people , not hospitable.

Poor customer service is running rampant these days and it all stems from the covid outbreaks. The problem is that it doesn’t have to be that way. I’ve found many businesses who are understaffed take customers coming in for granted and basically use covid as an excuse for poor service. On the flip side of that there are a lot of consumers who don’t have patience and don’t take the severe understaffing into consideration. In my opinion if your a business and you can’t run it properly because of staff shortage then temporarily shut it down or consolidate until you can manage the business properly. Saratoga racetrack is somehow getting it done but some of the businesses around them are not.

Given it's proximity to the track.
 

The horseshoe , like Siro's after track parties, blows up after racing.

Younger crowd, and they hit it hard down here until 1 am in the morning. James Bonds barn (007) is directly behind the horseshoe. His horses start coming by 5 am.


You basically nap at Saratoga, no real sleep. The best horse party in the world imho.

It's pouring here this morning, biblical proportions. Much harder than yesterday. Forget about the turf races.

Yesterday, some of my inlaws visited , who had never seen the track, so I took them to the track buffet breakfast. The best thing about it is there is no wait unlike most of the good breakfast places in town. My main complaints were 1) neither grits nor oatmeal were offered, my wife is a vegetarian and the only selection for her were the home fries, although there was plenty of fruit there. 2) they don't have the coffee dispenser next to the buffet table anymore, so you can't refill coffee yourself and have to wait for the server to come around. There's like one server for every 30 tables, which is usually OK since it is a buffet.

The rest of the offerings were high quality (eggs, bacon, sausage, etc.). It is a great way to experience the track for the first time. The rest of the track is open at that time; I gave them a tour after we ate.

Anthony Stabile told me he had 2000 people.for breakfast Whitney day.. That makes it new and different. The women who did it before him spoke like she was at a funeral. You'd be lucky to see 200

It's a thing now. Always was great but smaller & quieter.

I'm heading back. 8 days, 7 nights, Aug 31 - Sept 7. I put the hotel together while I was up there. $1300 for the week, and my flight was $5 , plus 8500 jet blue points. I love it up there. Full press 2021.

Redboard

FTFY

Great weekly price and obviously not the last place you just stayed. I hope you have a better experience but you seem like a guy who has a good time regardless of the situation. 8500 JB points for round trip ? That seems like a great price as well. Have fun again at the Spaaaaaaaaaa.

I'll tell you one more Brentwood story, then I want you to low engage me.


Early around 10, the same woman who drowned the fire at 11, did put a log on the fire. Maybe then was a good time to tell me it was dead at 11.

Who cares, I only tell these stories for funnies.

I asked how the meet has been going , I was just making small talk , I didn't expect what I got.

She said during the week ok but the weekends were brutal.

I asked how so?

She said people were out of control and thier behavior was just brutal. She further said that she had been sexually harassed and her coworker was urinated on. :

Angela , the character from the sitcom The Office appeared before me. No bean bag talk on this, precision quotes.

Closing act.
 

I was smoking a 🚬.


When she was done she pointed at my hand and said. , No smoking on the property. Then she went back in the office.:lol:

Gossip
 

Two days into the meet the head chef at Siro's was arrested. He had warrants for financial crimes in 5 States. He was working at Siro's under a fake name.
The restaurant closed a couple of days.

Siro's is leased and two months ago, the Lessor was arrested for doctoring liscening and permit applications with NY state.

The person who owned it for 25 years is back running it. I think his name is Tom Dillion.

The combination of classes is an anomaly, but holding it in the Fasig-Tipton pavilion isn't:

https://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-rac...g-hall-of-fame

Thanks for all the pics! Always enjoy them.

I need to hire my own fact checker. :D

I appreciate that people enjoy the pictures.