Martin Benjamin

INSIDE SARATOGA 2003

And . . . They’re Out!
As New York enacts its public-smoking ban, stock characters at Saratoga Race Course are banished to the past—or at least as far as the backyard
By Kathryn Ceceri

It’s a beautiful, sunny day, which means the temperature on the clipped green lawns and around the quaint wooden benches by the rail at Saratoga Race Course is just about unbearable, and I’m looking for a sign.

No, not a voice from the heavens saying who to bet in the fifth (though I wouldn’t say no to a good tip). I mean an actual sign.

You know, like the ones I see all over that warn “No Coolers” in the buildings. Or the ones that announce “No Betting” by people under 18.

And then suddenly I see it. There’s a short muscular guy on a ladder with a bunch of them in his hand over by one of the entrances to the grandstand’s underside, where the betting windows and beer stands are, and he’s tacking them up overhead.

“No Smoking.”

Last Thursday, day two of the 135th meet of thoroughbred horse racing in Saratoga Springs, was the end of an era for some at Saratoga Race Course. In a city once known as the playground for New York’s gangster elite—a place still drawing the eye of the law for possibly shady gambling rackets—you can no longer enjoy the vice of sitting in the stands or the Clubhouse, taking a drag on your Marlboro and a swig of your Miller Lite while combing the Racing Form for a sure thing.

No more will the socialites and the tycoons get to lounge in their private boxes, drawing slowly on their filter tips before laying money on the stable of the fellow down the row. No, with New York State’s new ban on smoking in business establishments kicking in, the smokers have to leave their shady recesses and join the sweaty groundlings down below.

“It’s becoming like a police state,” gripes Amanda McGean, who’s just stubbed out her cigarette. “It makes people want to smoke more when you’re told you can’t.”

Over by the guy with the signs, McGean, a native of Liverpool, England, her Irish mother-in-law Marge, and friend Janice Hovey of Poestenkill have come down out of their grandstand seats for a smoke. Nothing like this has spread to the other side of the Atlantic. For them, the new rules are a slap in the face when they’d just come for a little fun.

“I’m used to coming up here and relaxing,” said Hovey, “having a cigarette where and when I choose. I find it offensive.”

With New York Racing Association officials hoping Saratoga’s season will be hotter than ever, between local equine hero Funny Cide and the new film Seabiscuit (and with the state attorney general still looking into some of NYRA’s more questionable activities), figuring out where people can and cannot smoke apparently has not been a top priority.

So it’s not until now, day three, that the “No Smoking” signs are actually going up. And perched on his ladder, young Cody Coulter seems to be getting the worst of it from the ladies.

“I’m just a union carpenter,” he protests. “I’m just hanging up the signs. And now I’m going to light up,” he adds.

Yet for all the grief Coulter’s getting, it seems to be a quiet revolution going on. Though the signs are just going up, smokers at the track already seem resigned to their fate. Yes, there’s still the occasional seasoned gambler wedged into his chair under the grandstand by the TV monitors, chomping a stogie over his crumpled-up handicapping sheet. But on the steps of the grandstand, NYRA employee Miya Branch, in her first season as a whitecap helping patrons find their seats, says she hasn’t had to stop anyone from trying to sneak a smoke.

“The only complaint,” she offers, “was one lady who said a guy was smoking a cigar.”

And what about those archetypal old geezers who drop ash on you as you squeeze in next to them at the rail? They and their cigars have been banned from the stands for quite some time, say next-generation aficionados Phil Carne and Jim Gaffigan.

Savoring their stogies in the track’s “backyard,” the buddies from Red Bank, N.J., aren’t too put out over being relegated to the picnic area; they mostly indulge outdoors anyway, usually while playing golf or at the races down at Monmouth Park. But coming from a state that still allows cigarettes in bars, they’re not impressed by New York’s new rules.

“It’s kind of ridiculous,” says Gaffigan.

Reluctantly, carpenter Coulter points out the biggest irony of all: Nobody’s going to give up smoking just because the state tells them to.

“No one wants to be a smoker,” he says. “It’s not something you’re proud of. But I think it all boils down to willpower and determination. It’s a drug, an addicting thing. There’s no smoker out there who doesn’t want to quit.”

And picking up his ladder and his signs, Coulter continues down the grandstand at historic Saratoga Race Course, where another small piece of history is gone like a puff of smoke.

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