Vibe Check: Croquet on the Green
SLAH's Natalie Moore loses a croquet tournament, goes behind the Bourbon Room bar, and cheers on a team of basketball-playing jockeys.
Totally Wicket
When a last-minute cancellation landed us a spot in AIM Services’ Croquet on the Green croquet tournament, my friend Molly and I weren’t quite sure what we were in for. “I watched some croquet videos this morning,” Molly said upon arrival at Gavin Park. She had learned that there are two main techniques: swinging the mallet like a golf club, or swinging it through your legs, which most of the pros prefer. Once we got our program for the annual garden party and tournament fundraiser, which had instructions for how to actually play croquet (essentially two teams of two compete to get one of their balls through each of 13 wickets) we figured we were ready to rock. Until we got to our table.
We sat down at Table 5 with our lunch boxes from the Deliciously Different food truck, and told the couple sitting next to us that our first game was at 3:50. “Did you bring your own mallets?” the man asked. That’s when we got scared. “What do you think that tent is?” Molly asked nervously, pointing to a pretty tepee-style structure a little ways away. “The medical tent?” (It was a glamping tent, we later learned; Glamp ADK was raffling off a getaway.)
When we took a walk around the croquet courts, however, our fears were alleviated. No one had brought their own mallet, and most people also didn’t know how to play. “Did that count as a hit?” One woman said after mis-hitting the ball on her first swing. “No, that was a warm-up,” her opponent said.
Our court was delayed, so we didn’t take the field until 4:10. Our opponents were Adirondack Trust’s Ellen Brodie and Deann Devitt who, despite being rookies, played a mean game of croquet. “Knock her out, Ellen!” Deann exclaimed when my ball was in perfect position to tap through the wicket. Due to our late start, our game was cut short, with Ellen and Deann up 3-2. Heartbreak.
When we got back to the party tent, dessert—gorgeous croquet themed cookies, cupcakes and cake from Bread Basket—had been served. “This will soften the loss,” Molly said.
In the end, Phinney Design’s team came out on top for the second year in a row, and the event brought in more than $70,000 for AIM, which will use the money for its summer recreation and a summer respite program—two services that provide community-based services and activities for students aged 5-21 who may not otherwise be able to find a setting to accommodate their needs.
And now I’m addicted to croquet.
Hey, Bartender
“Hi, what can I get you?”
“What do you have for rye?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I don’t actually work here.”
That’s how most of my conversations went last Friday evening when I stepped behind the Bourbon Room bar as part of the Caroline Street watering hole’s Women Making Their Mark guest bartender series going on every Friday from 5-8pm through track season. Each Friday a new woman business owner, or in my case just a woman, teams up with a Bourbon Room bartender (in my case, Olivia) for happy hour. “The whole point of the seven-week event is to celebrate and highlight females who are doing overly well in their respective occupations,” Bourbon Room owner Brian Miller says. “I set aside $100 each week of the competition, and the guest bartender that has the best happy hour will get to choose where they want the money donated to.” The week before my bartending debut, Rachel McNair of The Content Agency was featured, and last night Palette and Saratoga Paint & Sip Studio owner Catherine Hover was behind the bar.
My night started out slow, and I mostly made conversation with the bar’s IT guy, who doesn’t drink. (When I’m behind the bar, that’s my kind of guy.) Things picked up, and I kept busy pouring draft beer (mostly on my feet), forgetting to actually charge people for drinks, leaving used glassware around for Olivia to wash, and saying “Olivia…help.” (For me, they should change the name of the series from Women Making Their Mark to Women Missing The Mark.) The experienced bartender, who was featured in our recent story on how Saratoga’s service industry workers get through track season, taught me how to make an Old Fashioned, and then one of the bar’s signature cocktails: the Blackberry Smash.
“Can I interest you in a blackberry smash?” I asked everyone who sat down, as muddling 3-4 blackberries with sugar and topping it with whiskey was about all I was good for. My friend’s dad came in and thought he was doing me a favor by ordering simple: a Woodford Reserve Double Oak on the rocks. “Olivia,” I said, “where’s the Woodford Reserve? And where’s the ice?”
My favorite interaction, though, was when a woman came into the bar, which stocks hundreds of specialty bottles of bourbon, rye, scotch and other whiskeys, with her husband. Upon telling her I couldn’t help her since I wasn’t a real bartender, she said, “So you’re fake. That’s OK, I’m a fake whiskey drinker.” She turned to Olivia: “Do you have Crown Royal?”
Hoop Scoop
After feeling FOMO following the Permanently Disabled Jockey Fund’s jockey karaoke at which, I hear, Barstool President Dave Portnoy got into (and ultimately lost) a bidding war with the sheikh who was in town, I couldn’t miss the next opportunity to watch Saratoga jockeys do something they aren’t trained to do. In this case it was basketball, as the jocks took on the trainers in the New York Racetrack Chaplaincy’s annual Jockeys vs. Horsemen Charity Basketball Game.
The players arrived fashionably late, following a hold-up at the track; this was on Thursday, so they’d been racing all day. “Jose is here,” the announcer said as Jose Ortiz walked into the gym of the Saratoga Rec Center. “Everyone else is in the shower.” Then a few minutes later: “I hear Manny Franco is riding in the back of Jeremiah’s truck.”
Once everyone had arrived and the buglers had bugled the National Anthem and the Call to Post, the game began. Anyone looking at the rosters would bet on the trainers—only the tallest horsemen came out to play (trainer Richard Schosberg was the exception), and while the jockey team’s average height was given a boost by the presence of former New York Knick John Wallace, it still seemed an uneven match-up.
And yet the first half was fairly even. John, after (comically) trying on a skin-tight jockey silk and immediately taking it off, had a few impressive blocks, but mostly let his much shorter, faster teammates do their thing, dribbling and passing at the trainers’ knee level. “Todd Pletcher is giving instructions,” the announcer said of the horsemen team’s coach, who had his hands in the air, at a timeout. “He’s saying ‘keep the ball up here.’” Angel Cordero, Jr. coached the jocks, though team members Irad Ortiz and Kendrick Carmouche seemed to take over for the retired Hall of Famer.
A minute before halftime, the score was tied at 32-32. Wallace sunk a 3-pointer, kicking off an absolutely insane series of points by the jockeys; a basket at the buzzer made it 41-32 at the half. The rest of the game was no contest. “I don’t want to say the trainers are giving up, but their coaches are sitting down,” the announcer said midway through the second half. Assistant coach Kiaran McLaughlin stood up. “No, don’t get up, Kiaran.”
In the end, the jockeys came out on top, winning 81-55. I mean, they are professional athletes, after all.
Quote of the Week
“I don’t like to brag, but I’m really good at eating cake.”
—Ilana Smith Klein over dessert at AIM Services’ Croquet on the Green
Photo Dump
The pics are here! Here are just a handful of the photos from last Saturday’s Racing & Rosé brunch party and fashion show with Carson Kressley…Be sure to check out the full gallery by Morgan Campbell Photography and our behind-the-scenes SLAH recap from the morning.
This Week in Saratoga Living After Hours
On Monday we asked readers to ID three mystery locations on the Saratoga Race Course grounds.
And on Tuesday, we checked the vibe of our very own Racing & Rosé event with Carson Kressley.