Another Souvenir

Forget ashtrays and snowglobes: Saratoga keepsakes are as upscale as the season

By Shawn Stone

Souvenirs are supposed to be junk. At least that was what I grew up to believe. Back in the day, families would go on vacation to some glamour spot like Niagara Falls or Lake Placid, and come home with armfuls of crap: bumper stickers, salt and pepper shakers, cheap figurines, and ashtrays. An ashtray, usually painted with a picture of some natural wonder or impressive structure, was a big item. Sure, you couldn’t see the artistic rendering of Whiteface Mountain through the squashed butts most of the time, but it proved that you had been somewhere.

Wandering up Broadway in Saratoga Springs last Saturday in search of souvenirs, I was struck, one, by how few places even sold souvenirs, and two, by how nice the available products were. Sure, it was easy to find key chains and shot glasses, but most of the treasured, traditional junk seems to have gone out of style.

Take a noted souvenir store, Impressions of Saratoga, for example. Located on the south end of Broadway, this place is lousy with beautiful stuff. Shirts with embroidered logos, and all manner of similar nice apparel. Lovely reproductions of posters and prints from Saratoga summers past, wall tapestries, an entire line of racing-oriented toys, elaborate doll houses, and carved wood horsehead bookends. No rinky-dink “Souvenir of Saratoga Springs” ashtrays here.

Part of it, I suspect, is the upscale nature of the Saratoga summer experience. Plus, the city itself has a real downtown, with actual retail stores offering quality goods. Storefronts set up to sell cheap, seasonal stuff aren’t much of a business opportunity.

It was an absolutely beautiful day to go to the track, and I walked over from downtown in the early afternoon. There must be plenty of souvenirs there, I supposed. The parking lots were full along Union Avenue, and people were steadily streaming in the front gate. A leisurely atmosphere prevailed, as every patch of green space was taken by folks in lawn chairs, many with racing forms in hand, and most with coolers positioned within arms’ reach. Under the grandstand, the betting windows were very busy (the Whitney Handicap was coming up), and the beer and food concessions were humming. The souvenir stand, however, was comparatively quiet.

The souvenir stand at the average New York State Thruway rest stop is busier on a weekend afternoon.

This was not for lack of items. They had a dozen different classy looking T-shirts, each with an artful variation on a Saratoga theme, five sporty types of jackets, and a handful of sweatshirts. (Looking at the tasteful wares on display, I couldn’t help imagining something more darkly humorous: “My Dad blew his paycheck at the track, and all I got was this lousy shirt.”) There were cup holders with the Saratoga logo, money clips, cuff links, kitchen magnets, little racehorse toys for the kiddies, and, looking well out of place, a coffee-table-sized biography of C.V. Whitney sealed in plastic. They also offered smokes. The smokes seemed to be the biggest seller.

Let’s face it: The only souvenir most folks want to take home from the track is a wallet fat with winnings. Anything else is an afterthought, a sop to a spouse or kid who couldn’t make the trip. A consolation prize for being left at the gate, as it were.

That is, of course, unless the souvenir is free. The very next day was giveaway T-shirt Sunday, and the track set a paid-attendance record. As the New York Racing Association so carefully stated, there were 69, 523 people through the turnstiles. (This beat the previous record, set not-so-coincidentally on last year’s free T-shirt day.) There weren’t quite that many heads actually there, as some enterprising folks went through the gate repeatedly, happy to fork out a few bucks each trip through for a black shirt with a red, white and blue Saratoga logo.

Enterprising? You bet. These freebies truly engender an entrepreneurial spirit. Early the next morning, there were 49 auctions of the T-shirts already up on eBay, most with a starting price of $6.99. (Since most of the listings stated “all sizes” available, one had the impression that quantity and selection was not a problem.) A previous free giveaway this season, the Jerry Bailey Bobblehead Doll, was also a hot eBay item, with 100 up for auction that morning. Most of those were being bid up in the $12 to $16 range.

The golden age of souvenirs has passed; we’re deep into the age of collectables, when items are judged for their potential value. It really makes me nostalgic for those innocent days when souvenirs were tacky ashtrays and ugly bumper stickers.

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