Saratoga Race Course

I met her at Saratoga for the event on Saturday, which was wild.

The amount of Barstool fans that were there at Saratoga Racecourse, like, rooting us on.

Like, it was just unbelievable experience doing a live stream with Dave and Dan and Helio and Rico and Jerry.

Just, like, incredible, incredible dinner the night before.

The infrastructure has changed almost beyond recognition, moving from copper telegraph wire to satellite and fiber optic cable, but the underlying idea that a distant sporting event can be turned into a live, continuously priced betting market for people who are nowhere near it was already fully formed by the 1890s.

One of the most important figures in institutionalizing this world of American racing and gambling was a man named John Morrissey, a former bare-knuckle boxing champion turned professional gambler and eventually a member of the United States House of Representatives, who in 1863 helped found what would become the Saratoga Race Course in upstate New York, a track that still runs today and that became almost immediately one of the great gathering points for American gamblers, bookmakers, and eventually organized crime figures for the following century.

As betting on horse racing grew into an enormous national business, it also began to attract the attention of reformers, moralists, and eventually state legislatures, many of whom viewed organized gambling as a corrupting influence on working people and on the moral character of American cities.

New York, home to some of the country's most important tracks and its largest poolroom networks, passed increasingly strict anti-gambling legislation in the early 1900s, culminating in a law known as the Hart-Agnue Act, passed in 1910, which effectively outlawed bookmaking at racetracks within the state and, for a period of several years, nearly shut down organized horse racing in New York entirely, since without legal betting, track owners struggled to draw enough of an audience to keep the sport financially viable.

Yeah, a very interesting weekend.

The Graveyard of Champions struck again, or at least taken down a heavy favorite there in Counting Stars.

A very good run by MyGunsLoaded up here, a horse that Chad Brown's been very high on, and she ran to it here, and he might have learned something running against Counting Stars, if always a runner, to help him out this weekend.

But it was definitely a lot of fun up here at Saratoga this weekend, and a very busy week ahead with not just the Travers, but a load of Grade 1 options coming up here on Saturday.

Welcome back to the Destination Saratoga All-Access Podcast.

I'm your host, Mackenzie, and we are back inside the 1863 Club at Saratoga Race Course.

I'd like to thank our presenting sponsor, NYRA, and our supporting sponsors, Mazone Hospitality, Miss Scarlet Boutique, and the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame.

Today, I am joined by Matthew DeSantis, content producer and handicapper for NYRA Bets.

[laughs] That's where I'll come in.

Um, so I'm excited.

I, I think we'll hopefully teach the audience some fun tips and tricks while they're betting at Saratoga Race Course this summer.

Absolutely, and just make sure everybody has a great time when they come out to the track, whether they win $2, $20, or hey, $200.