Saratoga: Highly Anticipated Summer Meet Kicks off Friday

The 143rd edition of the prestigious Saratoga Race Course meet starts this Friday, July 22, 2011. It’s the highly anticipated meet that generates more interest than any other summer meet. The 40-day meet will run six days per week through Labor Day. Tuesdays are dark days.

Three of the four top jockeys in the nation will compete here. John Velazquez, who won the meet last year, 2010 Eclipse Award winner Ramon Dominguez and Javier Castellano.

Opening day will feature two stakes races and a race that will be to honor Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. “The Gabrielle Giffords,” a maiden race for two-year-old New York-bred fillies is scheduled as the seventh race and has drawn a field of 11.

The race will be named after Giffords, the Southern Arizona congresswoman who is recuperating from injuries sustained when she was shot at a constituent event in front a supermarket this past January 8.

The pair of stakes races—the Grade 3, $100,000 Schuylerville for two-year-old fillies and the $75,000 James Marvin for older sprinters—highlight the opening day card.

The Schuylerville will be run as the ninth race on the 10-race card, following the James Marvin, which drew an outstanding field of 11, featuring Grade 1 winners Gayego, Here Comes Ben and Jersey Town. First race post time is 1 p.m.

This year the New York Racing Association and the NBC Sports Group have partnered to broadcast "Summer at Saratoga" over seven weekends of the meet.

It will be the most extensive live television coverage in Saratoga’s history, and the schedule will be as follows:

NBC SPORTS GROUP SUMMER AT SARATOGA COVERAGE (All Times EST)

July 23: Coaching Club American Oaks, 5-6 p.m., NBC

July 30: Diana and Jim Dandy, 5-6 p.m., VERSUS

Aug. 6: Whitney and Test, 5-6 p.m., VERSUS

Aug. 7: Vanderbilt and Honorable Miss, 5-6 p.m., VERSUS

Aug. 13: Sword Dancer, 5-6 p.m., VERSUS

Aug. 20: Alabama, 5-6 p.m., NBC

Aug. 27: Travers and King’s Bishop, 5-6 p.m., NBC

Sept. 3: Woodward and Forego, 5-6 p.m., VERSUS

Additional incentives have been put in place. For the first time, the NYRA will pay $1,000 to the horses in every race that finish sixth through last. If the fifth-place value for any given race is less than $1,000, NYRA will supplement the difference.

Also, there will be nine steeplechase races this summer, three more than last year. These races will lead off every Thursday card. A second steeplechase race will be added in weeks two, four and six.

Also Saratoga will feature five stakes races featuring the "Win and You are In" to the 2011 Breeders’ Cup automatic berth. The stakes (Breeders' Cup berth) will be: Ruffian (Ladies’ Classic), Whitney (Classic), Ballerina (Filly and Mare Sprint), With Anticipation (Juvenile Turf) and Hopeful (Juvenile).

It will definitely be a meet worth watching.