Flatter: Can we do something about the view at Saratoga?
Time for something out of the past. An old-school column covering not one but a bunch of topics. The only things lacking will be the dusty fedora and the three dots between every item.
Since my name is on this thing, it has to start with a beef.
As you clearly can see. My caterwauling about this may be as old a tradition at Saratoga as the awnings, the gables and the morning dash for real estate in the back yard. When will the pan camera ever be put high enough so that we can see the whole race?
The televised view we get from the New York Racing Association on the Saratoga video feed is nowhere near the best seat in the video house. I am sure way back when they started ringing the bell 17 minutes before the post time, there might have been a reason for such a low aerie.
Early TV cameras took up more space than a horse. Now they can be smaller than a stirrup. In the 21st century, they do not even have to be manned, although there may be some 20th-century union requirement that they are. I still have my SAG-AFTRA card somewhere, so I appreciate that. I also know the mandated operator just as easily could be running the camera by remote control in an air-conditioned control center.
The NYRA show that bounces haphazardly between Fox and FS1 and FS2 at the most inopportune times also hopscotches through too many angles in the same race largely because of all the trees and screens and skyscraping bulwark more than 10 feet tall that block the main view. Every time the director switches from the pan camera to the zipline view to the eye over the far turn back to the pan camera, it makes it that much more difficult to keep track of the horses who have my attention. And money.
The ideal solution starts with lifting the pan camera to a higher location. If that promontory does not exist, then build it. See? I did not even call for the leveling of any trees. Not yet.
In the meantime, maybe NYRA can strap a GoPro to someone really tall.
That quizzical nature. Thrill and amaze your friends, loved ones or bus passengers with these fast facts that I rounded up for my podcast this week, some left over from Triple Crown season.
When Sovereignty, Journalism and Baeza finished 1-2-3 in that order in the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes, it marked the fourth such result in U.S. classics. It happened twice during Triple Crown sweeps. Affirmed, Alydar and Believe It were the trifecta in the 1978 Derby and Preakness. Secretariat, Sham and Our Native were just that in the 1973 Derby and Preakness. Just to go one better in 1953, Native Dancer, Jamie K., Royal Bay Gem and Ram o’ War duplicated their superfecta in the Preakness and Belmont. If only they had superfectas back then.
Hall of Famer trainers Bob Baffert and Steve Asmussen have combined for exactly one Grade 1 win in 2025. Baffert got it March 8 with Cavalieri in the Beholder Mile. Asmussen’s most recent was Aug. 24 with Society in the Ballerina Handicap. I would say they are due.
With his 10,923 training wins, Asmussen is 208 behind world-record holder Juan Suárez Villaroel in Perú. Asmussen had been catching up, but in the past year, each has been winning an average of about one race a day. Suárez Villaroel actually has extended his lead.
This year marked the first time since 2005 that Baffert, Asmussen, Chad Brown, Brad Cox and Todd Pletcher failed to hit the board in every Triple Crown race.
It is not just on this side of the Atlantic. Aidan O’Brien, who owns Europe with the Coolmore lads, did not win a Group 1 race at Royal Ascot this year. The last time he got goose-egged was 2003. Anyone taking action that that happens again next year? I didn’t think so.
Etc., etc. The annual boilerplate about the Breeders’ Cup board mentioned a conspicuous comeback. Craig Fravel, who has been there and done that as the boss at the Breeders’ Cup and Del Mar and 1/ST Racing, was voted into a three-year term. It was just last July when he said hasta la vista, Stronach, to take a gig with financial-advisory company in Southern California. What is it they say? You can take the boy out of racing.
Brian Zipse penned a couple terrific columns about last weekend’s 50th anniversary of the tragic Foolish Pleasure vs. Ruffian match race. One more thing from here. An urban myth says the late turf writer Bill Nack tried to charge from trackside across the infield to see for himself how badly injured Ruffian was. The TV movie parrots that, showing him nearly being run over in the homestretch by Foolish Pleasure. One problem. That never happened. I watched the CBS video for the umpteenth time last week. The network showed the entire lonely gallop through the stretch. No Nack.
Talk about movies. Here are my 10 most noteworthy, alphabetically, about equine endeavors. “A Day at the Races,” “Boots Malone,” “Casey’s Shadow,” “Easy Money,” “Let It Ride,” “Phar Lap,” “Racetrack,” “Saratoga,” “Seabiscuit” and “Secretariat.” My favorite? “Boots Malone.” Thank you, Richard Migliore, for putting me onto that 1952 film.
Nothing to do with racing. Frank Layden died Wednesday. The old ball coach with the Utah Jazz was 93. Funny guy. When I was a snotty-nosed radio dweeb in Sacramento back in 1986, the Jazz had Adrian Dantley in a battle with Dominique Wilkins and Alex English for the scoring title. Late that season I asked Layden to compare them. “The difference between those three,” he said, “is like the difference between my mother-in-law and Gaddafi.” R.I.P.
Finally, whatever happened to Lee Chang Ferrell? He was the guy who ran onto the track at Pimlico and tried to punch Artax on Preakness day in 1999. He fared better than Emily Wilding Davison, a women’s suffrage protester who died after being run over by Anmer in the 1913 Epsom Derby. Don’t try this at home.
Only in racing, kids. Only in racing.
Ron Flatter’s column appears Friday mornings at Horse Racing Nation. Comments below and at RonFlatterRacingPod@gmail.com are welcomed, encouraged and may be used in the feedback segment of the Ron Flatter Racing Pod, which also is posted every Friday.