It would not seem right if I -- and everyone else who has a certain migratory
instinct which kicks in late in July and certainly in August -- did not pause to
reflect on the opening of another Saratoga race meet.

Every meet opens with hopes for glory, a life changing score, or at least a
positive ledger at the end of the meet, maybe a wild night with a strange girl in
a hayloft of one of the private barns. Of course there are always the memories --
bailing out for the meet with a desperate last plunge on a $1500 claimer at the
harness track, the strange girl's husband punching your lights out the next
morning, the brawl with Yankee fans on the night of Thurman Munson's death,
saluting the great Affirmed on the day in 1979 when he was made an honorary
citizen of Saratoga Springs.

The last few years, while I have been working in Manhattan, I have kind of made it
a point (tradition probably too strong a word here) to take a short sweltering
subway ride the day before I leave for the Spa. The symbolism is rather obvious:
within a 24 hour period I will experience both the Hell of New York's nether
regions and horseplayer's heaven up at the Spa.

This year the subway ride will not be necessary, as the Manhattan heat has been
hellish enough without heading underground. Yesterday was particularly
rough, as temperatures topped out over 100. After a 14 hour workday and a two hour
"Express" bus ride home, I had the strange experience of seeing my 86 year old
mother in law modeling her swimsuit when I got home, her way of hinting that she
wanted to be taken to the beach this weekend.

Message to Frank D: Read in DRF that the water supply at the race track had high
levels of chlorine; suggest you drink only bottled beverages.