2023 Another Impressive Year for Riverdee

We met George Grey last week. A mainstay for Hall of Famer Allen Jerkens from 1970 to 1985, the 69-year-old groom came back to Saratoga to work for Phil Serpe this summer. Serpe knew Grey was our kind of guy. Wow was he right.  Grey talked about Onion, Kinsman Hope, … Read More

The Hall of Fame. And the Hall of Famers I have known. Carl Nafzger. Inducted 2008. The former bull rider picked his way across a muddy Clare Court back when Street Sense was flying high in Saratoga. “You’ve got to pick your islands,” Nafzger said as he tip-toed across the … Read More

I stumble across the photo, the tree, the setting on a slow Tuesday morning.  On a walk, going nowhere, just strolling, through Clare Court, down in the valley, past Greentree, up the road along Yaddo’s backyard, wondering who’s writing poems, who’s writing classics on the other side of the woods. … Read More

George Grey needed a job. A long way from his Alabama home, he couldn’t pick cotton like he did when he was a kid. Living in Elmont, working his way through school, raised by a single mother, money was tight. The 14-year-old got a visitor’s pass at the Belmont Park … Read More

Questions. Oh, so many questions. While we travel to and from Saratoga, while we amble the backstretch in the morning, while we host a podcast at Whitman, while we decompress at the office after a deadline, we ask a lot of questions, think of a lot of questions. Here are … Read More