Saratoga and The Quartet that started it all! About 144 years ago the stage was set for the first national meeting at Saratoga Raceway, when the group of four which comprised of a congressman who was an American boxing champion, Winston Churchill's grandfather, a lawyer whose fortune was made on Wall Street and a horseman came together.

An experiment was the term used to describe this event, and on August 3, 1863, at Saratoga Raceway this experiment lasted four days and was a Huge success. The quartet was amazed at the popularity and the success of this event that they constructed a bigger track area to accommodate the large crowds of horse racing fans the following year.

Saratoga Race Course was the name they chose to call the racetrack. In 1847, this country's first thoroughbred horse race was held at this location in the resort of Saratoga Springs.

This group of founders was William R. Travers, the Saratoga Association's president and a lawyer, and his name bears one of the oldest major American thoroughbred races today. John "Old Smoke" Morrissey, former boxing champ, and a congressman, and in the 1850s was a New York gang member. Leonard Walter Jerome, Winston Churchill's grandfather, entrepreneur, and also known as "the King of Wall Street" a successful stock speculator. John R. Hunter, who owned horses and raced on both sides of the ocean, also co-owned a horse called Kentucky, and in 1864 was the first winner of the Travers race with his partner Travers.

Originally The Saratoga meeting lasted four weeks, but was lengthened and now it is a six week meeting, and ends on Labor Day. Upstate New York is the location of Saratoga Springs, known as "The Spa" for the mineral springs. In later years it got to be known as the Graveyard of Favorites and Champions.

Some great champions like Man 'o War, Gallant Fox and Secretariat where defeated here at the hands of some unheralded thoroughbred horses. In 1919, Big Red raced 21 times and his only loss was here on a muddy track against a horse called Upset. Secretariat, the 1973 Triple Crown champion was defeated by a horse named Onion in the Whitney Stakes. Gallant Fox, a Triple Crown winner, was defeated by a horse name Jim Dandy, a 100-1 long shot in the 1930s Travers race. In 1964 a stakes race was established called The Jim Dandy, and the prep for the Travers.

The New York Racing Association has stated that this 36 day meeting that will start on July 25 featuring significant purse increases and these purse increases will be more than 13 ? percent. The industry leading daily average of around $680,000 and to exceed that all the way to an expected $772,000.

Purses for open allowance races at 1 1/8 miles are at $68,000, an increase of $17,000, and purses for open maiden sprints are at $62,000, an increase of $15,000. Also overnight stakes are at $75,000, that is an increase of $10,000.

The 80th running of $750,000 Whitney is on July 28 and heads four stakes worth more than $1.7 million. The 138th Travers will be held on August 25 and worth $1 million, and is the main headliner on a four stakes card for more than $1.5 million.

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