Wednesday morning, the cameramen are in full swing at Saratoga. In the paddock, they cluster around for the Travers draw, tripods balanced like long-legged storks. In the winners’ circle, they form an orderly line for Senator Bruno’s conference on the fight against horse slaughter. Down near the rail, they lift cameras to shoulders and zoom in for local track reports.
There is plenty of news to go around, and by late morning the items blur into a jumbled stream of information. Street Sense draws post position number four in the Travers and Senator Bruno backs up Nick Zito and Nick Zito backs up Bruno and they say horse slaughter is wrong and should be banned and Shug McGaughey will send out Sightseeing to target Street Sense and Carl Nafzger says Shug’s horse is good and in a race on today’s card John Velazquez is riding a horse for Bill Mott because Kent Desormeaux had a prior commitment and over in the picnic area there will be an ice cream eating contest after the third race…
And Joe Pesci is sitting in a box in the clubhouse, surrounded by a swarm of dark-haired men who wear tweed suits and sunglasses, even though the summer sky is decidedly overcast.
At Saratoga, some things never change.