Fun in Saratoga

Interesting commentary on racing franchise

Fred Lebrun of the Albany Times-Union wrote an interesting - and on point - piece about the Saratoga racing franchise and the bidding process with regards to NYRA, Excelsior, Empire, and Capital Play.  Mr. LeBrun writes great commentaries and this one is no exception - so in case you missed it I thought you folks might be interested in it. 

Is there anything better than a warm Saturday in Saratoga?

OK so it was a bit cool in the shade - but what a great day!! Wish I woke up at 6am and enjoyed that much more of it.  I'm just going to make a real quick post here -  we are fortunate to live in America and damn lucky to live in Saratoga Springs. I started the day at the Farmers' Market, which is a must on a nice Saturday. I got the best peanut butter from where else - Saratoga Peanut Butter Co. - and yes you can order on line and yes they have gift packages!

(Jessica and Chris, of Saratoga Peanut Butter Company.)

After that I went to the West Side YMCA and got a very quick lift in (who wants to be inside too long?) and then ran all through the west side - I went about 4-1/2 miles and it was so easy because there was so much to see.  I went through some standard middle class neighborhoods with  homes from the 50s-70s - egad I actually saw a trailer on West Circular Street! Then I ran through a neighborhood of new builds - some not yet finished - kind of near the Sherwin Williams paint store, then back toward downtown where the homes were from the later part of the 19th/early 20th century - think Beekman Street and those surrounding streets.  Great run - I even got a boost from the sudden aroma of blossoms at one point.  I have to leave town tomorrow and will be gone for a week so I may not post during that time period. Enjoy the weekend!

Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation

The Saratogian did a nice story earlier this week regarding the Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation celebrating their 30 year anniversary this year.  I have been meaning to post regarding the foundation anyway because I was there several weeks ago and I really enjoyed stopping in.  They are located in the old School #4 at 112 Spring Street (across from the Spring Street Deli - which BTW has the best egg sandwiches anywhere) and just stepping into that refurbished building was a treat.  The Saratogian also printed a good article regarding that building as well. 

The folks at the Foundation - I remember the Executive Director Carrie Woerner and a woman named Marjorie  - were so helpful and they really were passionate about local history and preservation.  They seemed to have fun helping me find out information about the old house I live in - and they have file cabinets full of documents and pictures of many if not most older buildings and homes in Saratoga Springs - all filed in separate files for each address.  It's pretty neat - if you live in an old house in the area stop in and see what they have on it.  I learned a lot about my building, and I emailed copies of an old newspaper article about a fire in our house to my fellow condo owners, and they were thrilled with the information.  The article not only had information about the fire, but also some history about the house. The file also had some old photographs, and the house sure looked different 50 and 100 years ago.  Again - an enjoyable experience and I congratulate that great organization on their anniversary. 

Saratoga blogs and the Saratogian

First of all congratulations to Radnauseum on his 100th post (I counted - it's actually 98 - I decided two of them didn't qualify).  I never met him but he can't be all bad because he likes hockey and interesting music, including Elvis Costello in his rebel precorporate sellout years.  Good luck on your next 100 entries - as your fellow bloggers know, blogging takes considerable effort and time - not to mention incredible brilliance and model good looks. 

And hey, it's excitement time!  I've got a couple of new Saratoga area blogs on the blogroll over to the right side here - and I think I can definitely call them niche blogs.  Thanks to Andrew Acomb for alerting me to a neat blog with vivid photography from the folks at Wild Birds unlimited, a birding store in Wilton.  And damn it, someone beat me to a blog about gluten free eating in Saratoga, as you will see in the "Gluten Free Saratoga" blog.  To both of you - welcome to the local blogging scene.  Please feel free to join our fun in bashing The Saratogian. 

Actually, our not so esteemed hometown daily seems to have benefited from some improvements lately - I haven't been counting but there suddenly are an awful lot of actual Saratogian editorials, rather than the usual borrowed editorials from other newspapers.  Horatio, Ben - any comments?  I do believe the Journal Register Company may have lit a fire under our friends on Lake Ave, not only because of the local negative blog commentaries on the paper, but also the recently announced statistics by a national newspaper trade association that was reported in an article in last week's Times Union. 

While circulation at most Capital region newspapers on most days either held steady or actually went up, the circulation at The Saratogian plummeted, by an astonishing 8.5% average for the Monday through Saturday editions, and an eye popping 11.6% on Sunday.  Wow!  Well, go figure.  Hey, a number of us wrote a lot of negative things about the Saratogian in these blogs, but if a picture speaks a thousand words, then these statistics speak 10,000 words.  I will commend JRC and The Saratogian for finally waking up and addressing the editorial issue - and perhaps other issues - although the reporting is still spotty at best.  The national trend for daily newspapers was a 2.1% average decline in circulation, and the only other Capital region newspaper to see sigificant declines was the Glens Falls Post-Star, however theirs were not as bad as The Saratogian's steep drop.

I would guess JRC is paying attention to the local blogosphere (most companies monitor blog traffic and other "new media" for references to their company or product), and they obviously pay attention to their own circulation trends, in this case negative.  I imagine more than one top executive dialed the 518 area code and spewed out some venom to the appropriate folks at The Saratogian.  How else do you explain the sudden renewed effort at producing actual Saratogian editorials?  Gotta love a country and an era where a few people sitting at their desks typing on relatively cheap computers can have a significant effect on the local media, not to mention national corporations. 

Twilight Racing at Saratoga

The New York Racing Association announced back in January that they would increase this year's twilight racing events to two nights, which will be held on the first and last Fridays of the meet.  With yesterday's Kentucky Derby (Damn why couldn't Hard Spun have held on?  How did Street Sense make it through all that traffic??) and the nice weather, I'm starting to think, and get excited about, this year's Saratoga racing season.  I will probably be talking about the Saratoga meet some more as it gets closer.

I'm glad NYRA increased the twilight racing, and while I respect their go slow approach, I would have liked to see them experiment a bit further and try perhaps a Wednesday or better yet a Thursday twilight event in addition to the two Friday nights.  My thinking on a Thursday night event, perhaps best held during the middle of the season, is that people coming from out of town or working in the Capital district can adjust their schedule a little (read: knock of work early) and come up to the Spa City either just for that evening's racing, or to get an early start on their weekend stay in Saratoga Springs.  It just might increase the number of visitors here, and lengthen the number of room nights - something that might make the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce happy. 

The Chamber certainly appeared to be positive about the increase in twilight events.  Joe Dalton, of that group, stated “....this will be a new experience. We believe that whatever decrease in dinner business will be offset by a tremendous amount of people in town for great racing. The quality of the racing cards on these weekends figure to attract a lot more people from our target areas like New York, Connecticut and Boston. Plus, the entire City of Saratoga Springs gets exposure from ABC that opening weekend, not just the racetrack, but the Victorian homes, the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, all of Saratoga get exposure. That can only help business throughout the rest of the racing season.”

As Mr. Dalton indicated, the opening weekend in Saratoga will get some good television coverage as well, specifically the stakes racing on Saturday, July 28.  The NYRA site reported: 

That day, ABC-TV will televise the Grade 1, $750,000 Whitney Handicap for three-year-olds and up at nine furlongs; the Grade 1, $250,000 Go for Wand for fillies and mares at nine furlongs; the Grade 1, $500,000 Diana Handicap for fillies and mares at nine furlongs on the turf and the Grade 2, $200,000 Alfred G. Vanderbilt for three-year-olds and up at six furlongs during its two-hour live telecast that will begin at 4 p.m. Eastern.

Well, just over 2 and a half months til track season - with some nice weather coming.  A nice feeling here in Saratoga.

Paradise...at SPAC!

Well my Technorati searches of "Saratoga", as well as my RSS feeds from SPAC, keep turning up interesting things.  First of all under the has been departments - SPAC announced this week that Meatloaf will be performing in a concert there on July 22.  Considering that most of us can only name two, maybe three, Meatloaf hits, which were from almost 30 years ago, I'm surprised he rated a SPAC concert.  Sort of thought he'd be up the Thruway at Turning Stone, or The Palace Theatre in Albany, or Northern Lights, or Parting Glass.  Sorry to all you Meatloaf fans out there.  I also saw that O.A.R. will be at SPAC on August 19.  Who is O.A.R.?  Guess I'm outa touch.

Shifting gears, we apparently have an author in the Saratoga Springs Police Department who has written books and magazine articles on police issues.  Michael T. Rayburn was listed on the Criminal Justice Online blog in an entry discussing books by New York State local police officers.  He seems to be an expert in his field, which is kind of impressive.  I respect anyone who takes the initative and sticks to writing a book or a magazine article - it shows some special ability just to get it done and printed.  OK just a few random thoughts with Saratoga connections I am sharing with you.  Have a great weekend.