LOUISVILLE, Ky. — “This Important Message Out of Saratoga Springs, New York” came from a satirical horse racing newsletter.
The laughing-emoji message in response came from Dave Harmon, owner of West Side Sports Bar & Grill in Saratoga Springs.
Maybe racing fans in the Capital Region will get to see the cool gray colt named West Saratoga soon enough, but I’ve got bad news for the horse’s trainer: Harmon doesn’t know anything about any offer of “FREE for life” food and drink at his restaurant if West Saratoga wins the Kentucky Derby on Saturday.
More bad news, this time for fans hoping that the colt’s name is some sort of nod to the town: it ain’t.
But if you’re looking for a crazy long shot to root for in the 150th Run for the Roses, you can’t do much better than West Saratoga.
First, an explainer on the name:
West Saratoga’s owner, Harry Veruchi, named him after the avenue where Veruchi grew up in Englewood, Colorado, on the outskirts of Denver. He even incorporated the Colorado state flag into the silks that will be worn by jockey Jesus Castanon on Saturday.
Veruchi’s childhood house was about six blocks away from Centennial Race Track, which was torn down in 1983 to make way for Arapahoe Park a few miles away.
“Centennial was a lot of fun. I used to go there when I was a kid,” Veruchi said on Thursday morning while he watched West Saratoga graze on the lawn outside trainer Larry Demeritte’s barn at Churchill Downs.
“Now it’s a golf course, a high-rise, condominiums. It’s kind of like Hollywood Park, where the land is worth more than racetracks. But it was a nice little area for kids, having fun, getting old …”
As for the promise that Demeritte “will eat and drink for FREE for life at the long-time favorite watering hole for horsemen & women, racing fans,” which appeared under an “Important Message” headline, Harmon had a good time with it, laughing off any such claim, in a text message while he was traveling on Thursday.
Nevertheless, Demeritte and Veruchi were assured that if the horse shows up at Saratoga Race Course, he will be an instant fan favorite, all the moreso if he actually manages to win the Derby. Stranger things have happened.
Demeritte, a native of the Bahamas who admits to being at least 70 years old without getting more specific, will be the first Black trainer to saddle a Derby starter since 1989.
He almost made it to the Run for the Roses as an assistant to Oscar Dishman, Jr., with Silver Series in 1977, but after a poor performance in the Fountain of Youth, they waited for the Travers at Saratoga, where Silver Series finished third to Jatski.
The Triple Crown winner that year, Seattle Slew, was stabled in the same barn 42 at Churchill where Demeritte amiably goes about his business with West Saratoga in a quiet corner of the backstretch, away from the hubbub and crowds out by the track during morning training hours.
Lounging in a lawn chair to alleviate swelling in his legs, Demeritte, who was diagnosed with bone cancer in 1996, said his horse is peaking at the right time.
West Saratoga hasn’t won a race since September, but garnered enough qualifying points with a third in the Sam Davis and a second in the Jeff Ruby Steaks to make the Derby field. At 50-1, he and Grand Mo the First and Society Man had the longest odds on the morning line.
“But this horse, you watch the guys that work around him at the barn, they’ll tell you if he’s peaking, if he’s happy,” Demeritte said. “He’s very, very happy.”
Demeritte picked out West Saratoga, a son of 2016 Preakness winner Exaggerator, as a yearling at the tail end of the 2022 Keeneland September auction, when the heavy-hitting buyers had gone home.
A total of 2,847 yearlings were sold, for an average price of over $142,000, and Veruchi got West Saratoga for $11,000. If another bidder had raised it to $12,000, the horse probably would be in a different barn right now.
The gray colt has an unusual shock of brown coat from his left shoulder down the front of his leg that, “to me, that’s like a blessing,” Demeritte said. “I say he has to be a special horse, because you don’t see that marking. That’s the first time I’ve seen it over the thousands of horses I’ve been around.”
Even if West Saratoga wins on Saturday, he wouldn’t necessarily run in the Preakness two weeks later in pursuit of a Triple Crown, since Demeritte believes in spacing out the race schedule for his horses.
That puts the June 8 Belmont Stakes very much in play.
The third leg of the Triple Crown will be held at Saratoga this year while Belmont Park is being reconstructed, which means that West Saratoga could get two good shots at bringing Veruchi to the Spa for the first time in his life. They would target races like the Jim Dandy and Travers during the summer meet.
“He’s coming to Saratoga,” Demeritte said. “I promised, when I had a good horse, I’d bring him to Saratoga. I won’t go unless I have a good horse, and he’s good enough to be in Saratoga.”
“I want to go there someday. I’d love to go there,” Veruchi said. “You never know.”
An eponymous Derby winner at Saratoga (even if it’s actually about a street in Colorado)?
Veruchi and Demeritte won’t pay for a drink or a meal.
And they should stop by West Side, even if it was a jokester newsletter speaking for Harmon.
“He told me he would feed me for one year straight,” Demeritte said with a laugh. “You tell him, when I win the Derby, I’m bringing all my family.”
