More Beautiful Than Ever: Saratoga Now in Class with Best of French and South American Courses., Daily Racing Form, 1921-05-15

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MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN EVER Saratoga Now in Class with Best of French and South American Courses SARATOGA SPRINGS N Y May 14 Racing this coming August at Saratoga Springs and in years to come will be conducted in an environment as attractive as the racing of any country can boast Improvements just finished by superin ¬ tendent Claire who thanks to an unprecedented mild winter was able to keep his workers and con ¬ structors at work continuously through January February and March put the Saratoga Associations splendid park it is proper to describe tlie plant as a park now in a class with tlie beautiful courses of Paris Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires These improvements have cost a matter of 200000 but it will probably be the unanimous verdict of the thousands of summer sojourners who assemble here in August for the best racing the season of 191 will afford racing that will bring together in competition for stakes the annual renewals of which revive tlie best traditions of American sport that 200000 was never spent to better purpose purposeThe The most conspicuous of the improvements has been the clearing of the approach to tlie main en ¬ trance of everything that was unsightly and otherwise offensive This was accomplished by the purchase of tlie triangle of ground flanked by Union avenue on the village side of tlie gate and the removal from this ground of tlie small dwelling houses and shacks that for years had been an eye ¬ sore in themselves and had harbored venders of tips chops fried clams soft drinks and peanuts After tlie shacks on this ground had been wrecked tlie soil was sodded It was always beautifully shaded by elms of the sort that have made Saratoga for one hundred years a veritable sylvan paradise The most fastidious Latin exquisite who insists that the surrounding of his racing must appeal to the finer sensibilities will have nothing of which to complain of the approach to Saratogas main gate hereafter Some additional ground has been obtained outside the limits of the park in which the great course lies for the parking of automobiles Tlie growth of the patronage of racing by persons owning automobiles being a progressive phase that is hard to gauge and keep pace with With this additional room the Saratoga Association for the Improvement of the Breed of Horses will be able to care for more machines than any other race course on tlie continent continentThe The 150 acres that lie within the fences of the park had been beautiful for years and all that remained last winter to be done was to make a lake in the infield out of the hole left a couple of seasons back when loam was obtained for re soiling the main track This has been done This coming summer occupants of Saratogas grandstand will look out on fields galloping up the backstretch over as picturesque a body of water as was ever artificially constructed In the center of this little lake which will be surrounded by flowering shrub ¬ bery hydrangeas and such there will be an ever playing fountain Trees of the infield that were too closely grouped for te viewing of racing through the backstretch from tlie grandstand have been shifted about These trees are still things of beauty without being mild nuisances nuisancesNothing Nothing whatever has been done to the soil of tlie track which last year aud the year before was the fastest in the country There having been no heavy freezing through the winter the going was in such condition in March that any top notch selling plater or overnight handicap horse might have galloped a mile through it in 138 or thereabout It is within tlie limits of possibility that sometime next August some fast horse will cover the Saratoga mile in 135 under silks The mile record made in the running of a race for tlie Saratoga course is flow 136 Sun Briar estab ¬ lished this record when he won the Delaware Handi ¬ cap of 1918 and Fairy Wand equaled it when she beat Sun Briar a nose in the Delaware renewal of 1919 But in tlie summer of 1918 that grand little gelding Roamer galloped a mile against the watch on a fixed racing day in 134 and a little later on Sun Briar turned the distance in a private trial in 134 These Roamer and Sun Briar per ¬ formances serve to show tlie possibilities as regards tlmemaking of the Saratoga course The mile run ¬ ning record for America now is 135 and it is held by Man o War This record was made by Man o War at Belmont Park last spring when lie defeated Wildair in the Withers renewal


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Local Identifier: drf1921051501_1_4
Library of Congress Record: https://lccn.loc.gov/unk82075800