Join The Saratoga Special Readers Club for exclusive access to news, swag, discounts, special events and more
And look at that. It’s Opening Day at Saratoga. At least at The Saratoga Special. We are back. The Special returns for its 26th season at Saratoga. The first of 20 issues this summer. The Jonathan Kiser, a steeplechase stakes in honor of a young kid and an old friend, kicks off Thursday’s card. The … Read more
Eerie enough out there for you? Wednesday morning dawned hot, dry and orange-ish. Someone blamed wildfires in Canada, but we’re not ruling out some sort of off-kilter damage to the space-time continuum given that Saratoga Race Course hosted races in June, started its regular meet July 3 and ran seven days before The Saratoga Special … Read more
Sunday brings the curtain down on Week 2 of the 2026 Saratoga Race Course meeting – or the way we see things, the final day of racing before the first edition of The Saratoga Special for the season. A nine-race card awaits horseplayers and racing fans and everything kicks into gear at 1:10 p.m. No … Read more
The second of 10 (!) Saturday cards at the 2026 Saratoga Race Course meeting arrives as we near the midpoint of July and rev up for the start of The Saratoga Special’s 26th publishing season. Saturday’s 11-race slate features a pair of stakes – the Grade 2, $250,000 Caress Stakes for fillies and mares sprinting … Read more
Week 2 rolls along – it’s already Day 5 can you believe it? – with a 10-race card Friday topped by a strong renewal of the Grade 3 Victory Ride Stakes for 3-year-old fillies at 6 furlongs on the main track. A field of 10 entered the $225,000 Victory Ride including Grade 1 winners Tommy … Read more
The second week of the extended 2026 Saratoga Race Course meetings kicks off Thursday with a another nine-race card and a rare day without a stakes race here in upstate New York. How’s your bankroll faring after opening weekend? Fear not if it’s not up to par, there’s plenty of time to make up for … Read more
The first weekend of the 2026 Saratoga Race Course meeting comes to a close Sunday with a nine-race card – remember nine race cards? – topped by the inaugural running of the Grade 1 Leo O’Brien Handicap over jumps and the Grade 3 Kelso and Harvey Pack for older horses on the grass. Back to … Read more
Happy Birthday America. Saratoga Race Course celebrates the 250th with a stacked 11-race Independence Day card featuring the Belmont Derby and Belmont Oaks and the Suburban Stakes. Toss in the Sanford – and $1 hot dogs – and it’s an extravaganza of red, white and blue proportions. The Saturday card starts at 12:35 p.m., which … Read more
And so it begins. The 2026 Saratoga Race Course meeting – the longest in history at 46 days, and we’re not counting the five dates for the Belmont Stakes Racing Festival – kicks into gear Friday. A steam bath awaits the Opening Day card, which features three stakes with the Schuylerville, Saranac and Wild Applause. … Read more
Editor’s note: A feature on Magnitude from the Aug. 23, 2025, edition of The Saratoga Special. Then, he was looking to spring an upset of Kentucky Derby winner Sovereignty in the Travers. Magnitude finished third, 20 3/4 lengths behind Sovereignty. Nine or so months later, everything is different. Magnitude is the top older horse in … Read more
Alex Lieblong hung a left, around some plastic chain link fencing, through a hallway under the clubhouse box seat stairs toward the late afternoon diners noshing their desserts at tables on the porch. He hadn’t made the walk in more than a decade and didn’t need a map. “Been there,” Lieblong said, walking through a … Read more
