Humans of Travers Day
Forget the horses—let's hear it for the people who made the Midsummer Derby great.
Monday night special! We’re bringing you Thursday’s paid post a few days early because who wants to wait almost a whole week to relive the best day in Saratoga racing? You’ll get On Deck tomorrow morning, and then it’s back to our regularly scheduled programming on Saturday!
When everyone at the track turns to look at the horses that run for two minutes every 40 minutes or so, I turn to look the other way at the fans themselves. Maybe I’ll peek at the track or a screen at the very last second to see which horse crosses the finish line first—like I did this past Saturday when Thorpedo Anna was a nose away from becoming the first filly to win the Midsummer Derby in more than 100 years—but to me, the real action is in the grandstand, the boxes and the backyard.
You can count on the horses to run in a circle. People, on the other hand? You never know what they’ll do.
I spent the first half of Saturday afternoon drinking Surfside, the iced tea/lemonade vodka drink that everyone in the backyard seemed to be drinking, and the second half observing the humans of Travers Day. From a clueless Creed fan who reimagined what a track hat can be to the 50-person RV tailgate in a trackside parking lot, here’s what I saw:
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