Saratoga—mares and moeurs

FRANK SULLIVAN

What you do at Saratoga depends on what you go there for. You may have rheumatism or neurasthenia and go there to take the healing baths. Or you may go there hale and hearty to watch the races. Or, going there hale and hearty, you may pick so many losers that you will come down with a touch of neurasthenia, in which case the healing baths are right there handy.

If you go to the races at Saratoga on a fine Saturday afternoon in August, you will see 20,000 people rotating between the clubhouse, the grandstand and the paddock, consulting their programs knowingly, and appraising the horses with an expert air.

Do not let this fool you. Only a few of them know any more about horses than you do, assuming that you have had no more experiences with horses than I have. I was on one once, at the age of five; fell off instantly and never went back up, either on that horse or any other. So it would scarcely be fair to the Bostwick brothers, or to Winston Guest to call you and me gentlemen riders.

If you provide yourself with a program, sling a pair of field glasses over your shoulder, for effect, and stroll about the paddock muttering vague nothings about Omaha's withers, you will have as good chance as anyone to be taken for a Noted Horseman, or Prominent Turfite.

When you lose a bet, just be sure you don't say, "I lost on that one. The correct phrase is "I lose.*' And don't call the jockeys cute. Maybe they are, but not a few of them have grandchildren who are much cuter.

Now, it may ill become a native of Saratoga Springs like myself, weaned on mineral water and raised on chips, to say that the Saratoga race course is the most beautiful in the country, but it has been said so many times before by observers who were more detached, that I should indeed be derelict in my duty as a chronicler of facts were 1 not to record it here, just as l should be derelict in my duty as a loyal Saratogian were I not to kick anybody in the shins who denied it.

In the clubhouse, down by the finish line, just behind the masses of ivy and petunias in the flower boxes, sit those super-patrons of the turf who think nothing of paying $10,000 for a yearling at a sale. These are the best boxes and from them you can almost lean out and pinch the favorite as he flies by. In the other clubhouse boxes, sit those who would wince at paying $10,000 for a yearling but who would probably think nothing of paying $5,000, or $3,000, or $1,000. In the grandstand, sit those who would wince at the thought of paying anything for a yearling. In the field enclosure are those who do not even bother to wince, and are the better for it.

The field enclosure is at the eastern end of the stretch, over near Vermont, the state which votes for Taft every four years. In the field enclosure, the petunias bloom a little later than they do at the finish line, and the women mature later than they do in the clubhouse.

At the Saratoga races, you will probably see such figures as William Woodward, owner of Omaha; or A1 Jolson, who made the first talking picture but pleaded self defense and was acquitted. Or Admiral Cary Grayson and Herbert Bayard Swope, turfites who really would know about Omaha's withers. Or you may see Mrs. Woodrow Wilson. Or half Newport.

Or two-thirds of solvent Broadway, which would amount to one-eightieth of all Broadway. You will see most of Tammany Hall, a dash of Hollywood, a pinch of Southampton, and all the New York State legislators who do not belong to the Methodist, Baptist, or other sects that frown upon the Sport of Kings as an invention of the devil. You may even see a deacon, getting material for a sermon, at three to one to show.

Ihe portly gentleman saying "No!" in a biting tone is George Bull, president of the Saratoga Racing Association, or, as it is known to its intimates, The Saratoga Association for the Improvement of the Breed of Horses. Mr. Bull is saying "No!" to a man who wants a season clubhouse pass for himself and lady, on the ground that he has a cousin who knew a man who had a friend who once borrowed a light from Bull in a theatre lobby.

You will know F. Ambrose Clark of Cooperstown by bis ruddy countenance and gray bowler. You will see Mrs. Dodge Sloane, who once asked the reporters what difference it made what she wore to the races. Nobody ever found out the correct answer. You will see Jim Farley, and Governor Lehman, and you will positively he unable not to see Sam RosofT, the subway king who bought the Hudson River Day Line because he so loved the Hudson River. Or was it the Hudson River he bought because he loved the Day Line?

You will see young Alfred G. Vanderbilt, who recently inherited thirteen quadrillion dollars and either is or is not going to marry this or that débutante. Thinks nothing of paying $10,000 for a filly and sits in that kind of box.

Yon will see E. R. Bradley and Joseph E. Widener, who between them wear more collar, speaking in terms of square feet, than any other ten sportsmen at Saratoga. However, with all due respect to the Messrs. Widener and Bradley, the writer must admit that absolutely the most collar he ever saw worn at one time by one man was at the Saratoga track years ago by Berry Wall. Berry had so much collar on that he had to peek through the folds of his Ascot tie to see who was winning.

You will also see a great many Whitneys. No place in the world boasts a finer collection of Whitneys than Saratoga.

While at the Spa, you ought to get up early some morning and see the workouts at the track. Afterwards, you can have a fried chicken breakfast at one of the stable kitchens. If the dawn is misty, you may not be able to tell which horse is which, but if you are a novice this will not matter much because in that case you probably could not tell which horse was which even if the brilliant August sun was blazing down full upon them. To a novice, all horses are brown that are not gray. To a horse, all. novices are doubtless equally puzzling. Novices would be greatly helped if each horse in a race were dyed a different color, and if the winners were announced before the start instead of after the finish, as is the present archaic custom. The Jockey Club might well mull over these two proposals.

In the evening, you ought to go to the yearling sale. Everybody dresses in silks and satins and sits around a ring. The yearlings are brought in, one at a time, and sold to the highest bidders. The sales are conducted with great dignity and always have been, save for the one night when Robert Benchley wandered in, decided he needed a horse, and started to outbid six or seven Wideners. Then he decided he didn't need a horse, after all, stopped bidding and withdrew, to the chagrin of tin' yearlings, all of whom had taken an instant fancy to him and wanted to be sold to him.

After the sale, you can go to one of the night spots at Saratoga Lake and sup, or drink, or dance, or play a game in which a croupier spins a wheel and a ball falls on a number. If you arc "on the winning number, you are the Best One, and there is a letter in the Post Office for you.

Once there was a girl at Saratoga who had great presence of mind. It was at one of the Lake clubs, toward midnight of a Saturday evening in August, and the place was jammed. Suddenly the lights went out. There was quite a silence, with everybody asking himself the same question: Was it a holdup?

Marc Connelly and Russel Crouse were dallying at a table where the ball had just come to rest as the lights went out. They saw the young woman light a match, lean over, take a look at the number the ball had dropped on, douse the match and quietly shift her chips from where they had been to a nicer spot, on the winning number. The croupier saw her, too, but paid her off. The customer is always right.

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P.S.—It was a short circuit that put the lights out.

The years between 1902, when William C. Whitney opened the rebuilt Saratoga track, until the blue laws were passed in 1908, were gay at Saratoga. It was the Tod Sloan era. Dick Canfield was running his Casino. I used to hang on the gate outside the Casino nights and watch the celebrities go in Lillian Russell, James R. Keene, August Belmont, W. K. Vanderbilt. "Bet A Million" Gates, General Stephen Sanford, "Diamond Jim" Brady, and the rest.

During those years, I was dipper boy at a spring in the betting ring, and I was in love with Lillian Russell. I would desert the spring several times during an afternoon, leaving parched bookmakers dropping like flies, to dash out to the lawn and stare up at the box where Lillian queened it. No woman was ever so beautiful. She would have made any two Hollywood beauties look as though they had just got up.

She sent for a glass of the spring water one day. Trembling, I bore it to her. If I had known who Ganymede was, I would have felt like him. She gave me a dazzling smile, indicating plainly that she understood and returned my sentiments, and tipped me half a dollar. It seemed a desecration of our love to take the money, but I did, resolving to treasure it next my heart for aye. Unfortunately, economic pressure intervened, and I had to part with it that very night, for a gallery seat to a road company performance of "The Red Mill." I always felt she would have understood—and forgiven.

The picture is changing at Saratoga. In the days before the Civil War, it was primarily a watering place. The racetrack was not laid out until 1863. The war deprived wealthy Southerners not only of the privilege of seceding, but of the price of their annual sojourn at the Spa.

Thereafter, racing became an increasingly important part of the life at Saratoga. Then a smart man had a bright idea, to pump the natural gas from the mineral springs and sell it. That did not help the springs any.

In 1909, an event happened which affected the future of Saratoga Springs as much as anything that ever happened to her. The State took over the springs and ousted the pumping companies. Then began the rehabilitation of the Spa as a health resort, which took some time to get started, but which is now in full swing.

The State has spent several millions of dollars developing the baths and cure, and plans to spend more. Bathhouses, gymnasia, swimming pools, golf courses, drink halls are going up. A state-owned hotel opened this summer. People are going to Saratoga again to take the waters, as they did in the days before the Civil War. It would seem as though Saratoga the cure resort is hereafter to be as important as Saratoga the racing center. Maybe, in time, more so.