The New York Times - Postcard from Saratoga Springs
Fans Find Joy in a Long-Delayed Season of Bets and Feasts
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. — They stood in line in a drizzle, some here since 6 a.m., toting coolers and lawn chairs and picnic baskets. Hundreds of them waited for the wrought iron gates to swing open.
Suddenly, at 7 a.m., they were off! Moms and dads. Twenty-somethings and teenagers. They scattered like buckshot, turning the well-trodden grass and dirt paths into a highway. All in search of a patch of horse heaven to call their own.
Nothing says Saratoga Springs is back quite as ebulliently as the daily run for the picnic tables in the backyard of this historic racetrack. It was an all-out sprint to a hulk of splintered wood, the choice of which (horseplayers being superstitious sorts) might determine the fate of their betting fortunes in the afternoon.
