Saratoga Race Course historic clubhouse
— — the summer the bell hasn't rung yet.
Not only on a wall.
“The oldest organized sporting venue in the country, still running its meet through the same six weeks of high summer it has since 1863. Green-and-red awnings on a Victorian clubhouse, white spindle posts, the soft ground of Union Avenue under old maples. Before the first race the place is almost quiet, the kind of quiet a working barn keeps. Then the bugle, and the rail fills. from the studio
Saratoga Race Course historic clubhouse, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Saratoga Race Course sits on Union Avenue in Saratoga Springs, New York, about thirty miles north of Albany. The thoroughbred meet ran for the first time on August 3, 1863, four weeks after the Battle of Gettysburg, which makes it the oldest organized sporting venue of any kind in the United States. The current clubhouse and grandstand grew from an 1864 wooden plant by John Morrissey and expanded across the late nineteenth century. The mile-and-an-eighth main track encloses an inner turf course and is operated today by the New York Racing Association.
The Saratoga meet runs roughly forty days across mid-July through Labor Day, ending with the Travers Stakes, a Grade I race first run in 1864 and known as the Midsummer Derby. Mornings begin at the rail before sunrise, with breakfast at the clubhouse terrace while horses work the main track. Afternoons are post-time at one o'clock, six days a week, dark on Tuesdays. The town of Saratoga Springs, population around twenty-eight thousand, roughly doubles for the meet and quiets again the week after.
General admission to the grandstand area is inexpensive, with reserved clubhouse seats and box seats available through NYRA in advance. The main entrance is on Union Avenue, and free trams run from the Wilton parking lots. Track-kitchen breakfast and the morning workouts are open to the public without a ticket, beginning around seven. A jacket is expected in the clubhouse dining rooms, and no jeans on Travers Day in the upper reserved sections.