SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – One year after a high number of equine fatalities became the storyline of the Saratoga meet, the script flipped dramatically this summer.
There was only one racing-related equine fatality and two training fatalities during the eight weeks of the 2024 Saratoga meet that concluded Monday. That compares to nine racing-related and four training fatalities in 2023.
“What we’re seeing is the progress nationwide,” NYRA president and CEO Dave O’Rourke said. “This has been one of the safest meets since I’ve been here in terms of numbers, and I think you’re seeing a continual progress. I think in some of the ways we’re managing the tracks, we’re demonstrating how we’re adapting to the weather in certain ways. We’re pleased.”
Last year’s Saratoga meet was severely impacted by wet weather and decisions were made regarding usage of the turf course that were unwise. This year, NYRA was more conservative and, in most cases, quick to take races off the turf.
Last fall, the NYRA and many jurisdictions started requiring pre-race veterinary examinations to be conducted before horses can be entered and then again before they are permitted to run. O’Rourke credited NYRA’s veterinary team, headed by Dr. Sarah Hinchliffe, for their work in this area.
“All the credit to Sarah and her team, I think they’ve done a phenomenal job,” O’Rourke said. “In terms of their decision process, I’m hands off.”
O’Rourke also was pleased with the business generated at the 2024 Saratoga meet.
In another summer where inclement weather forced a high number of turf races to be run on dirt – and the cancellation of one racing card – all-sources handle was $803,806,964, a half-percent higher than last year’s figure of $799,229,228 and the third-highest handle generated in Saratoga history.
Average daily handle was $20,610,435, a 3.2 percent increase over last year’s daily average of $19,980,732.
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Attendance was announced as 1,051,092, just about even with last year’s figure of 1,105,683. Average daily attendance was 26,951, down 2.5 percent from last year’s figure of 27,642. Attendance includes daily season passes sold whether those patrons attended the races or not.
“In terms of handle per day, this is still the premium meet in the country,” O’Rourke said. “Then you get to attendance, you’re eclipsing a million again. Weather was a little different than last year, it was challenging. It was hot, then strong storms. Once we got clear in August and got back on the turf, we started to gain momentum.”
Though there were only 39 cards compared to 40 last year, there were 412 races run, compared to 410 in 2023. At this year’s meet, there were 155 turf races run, with 45 moved to the dirt. In 2023, there 140 turf races run, with 65 moved to the dirt.
When turf races are moved to the dirt, it negatively impacts field size. At Belmont Park, which is undergoing a complete renovation of its track surfaces, a Tapeta track is being installed in part to help keep fields together when wet weather prompts management to not use the turf. NYRA is studying the possibility of putting a Tapeta surface at Saratoga, though O’Rourke indicated in order to do that one of the two turf courses would have to be replaced, something he is reticent to do.
“It would be nice to have that option, however to achieve that option you’d be reducing your turf surface . . . and we’re not sure that’s the right call,” O’Rourke said. “You’re going to study this to death because that is a big deal, there’s no other way to put it. One of the things we have at all our tracks is two turf tracks. We never operated with one, and I’m not sure that makes sense.”
O’Rourke did say the possibility of a synthetic surface being put inside the Oklahoma turf training course is being studied to provide another training option for horsemen, especially during inclement weather.
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Though the 2025 Saratoga summer meet is expected to remain at 40 days – July 10-Sept. 1 – it also is expected there will be more racing dates at Saratoga next year. O’Rourke said Sunday that the final week of the Belmont at the Big A spring/summer meet (July 3-6) could be run at Saratoga. The Belmont Stakes will once again be held at Saratoga on June 7, 2025, and there could be five days of racing that week as compared with four in 2024.
Brown, Ortiz, Klarman are meet leaders
Chad Brown won his seventh Saratoga trainer’s title, capped off by a five-win Monday, which gave him 45 wins for the meet, 23 more than Todd Pletcher and Mike Maker who tied for second. The 45 wins were one shy of Brown’s single-meet record of 46 set in 2018.
Brown’s victory in Monday’s Grade 1 Hopeful was his Saratoga meet-record-setting 15th and 13th graded stakes victory, also a record. It also was his sixth Grade 1, potentially a record. Pletcher held the previous record for stakes wins, winning 14 in both 2013 and 2011. Pletcher twice (2010, 2022) and Steve Asmussen (2021) won five Grade 1s. It was not immediately known if any trainer had previously won six Grade 1s at a single meet.
In addition to the Hopeful, Brown won the Diana with Whitebeam, Test with Ways and Means, Fourstardave with Carl Spackler, Personal Ensign with Raging Sea, and H. Allen Jerkens with Domestic Product.
“This has been the best meet we’ve ever had,” Brown said. “I’m so proud of my team. My clients have given us a wide range of horses to work with and I just love me and my team being able to showcase that we can train any type of horse – any age, any distance, and surface – not everybody can say that. We’re one outfit that can, and we proved it on the biggest stage.”
Finishing behind Pletcher and Maker were Linda Rice (18) and Mark Casse (15) and Bill Mott (15).
One of Brown’s top clients, Seth Klarman’s Klaravich Stables, was the leading owner with 18 wins, four more than Jay Provenzano’s Flying P Stables.
Irad Ortiz Jr. was the meet’s leading rider in wins with 52, seven more than Flavien Prat. But Prat had the highest total in purse money with $6.6 million and also set Saratoga single-meet records for wins in stakes (18) and graded stakes (14).
Tyler Gaffalione (36), Dylan Davis (35), and Manny Franco (29) rounded out the top five in wins.
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