🌲✌️Disco Inferno, remembering 'Bobby'
🏈🏇BUT FIRST: You tell us your dream 'punishment' for fantasy league last place, and the Racing museum's newest exhibit lets freedom reign
🌴 Greetings from sunny Costa Rica. I’ve been trying to get these out a bit earlier, but the day got away from me today.
Stay warm and see you soon,
Abby
🏈 Best ‘punishment’ for fantasy league last place?
Over on Instagram, Seen in Saratoga asked:
What is the best punishment for ranking last place in fantasy league?
And more than 600 of you answered!
If you’re new here…
Every week, Seen in Saratoga puts a question out into the Insta-verse, and Saratogians can give their blunt, honest answers — anonymously.
And then our favorite — also anonymous — photog matches their answers with an unrelated, but expertly chosen, candid taken around town. Enjoy!
🏠 Mouzon great-granddaughter speaks out about famous house’s sale
Last week, it was announced that the Pedinotti family has put Saratoga’s beloved Mouzon House for sale — and beauty entrepreneur Trinity Mouzon Wofford has taken to social media to speak out about this “new opportunity to continue its legacy” and to share her family’s story.
“Urban Renewal decided to tear the entire block of houses down to make room for parking lots,” she wrote over a slide show of vintage snapshots and newspaper clippings of the 1890 Victorian house. “They hadn’t met a Mouzon. [My great-grandmother’s] water was turned off, her pipes froze, debris was dumped into her property. She didn’t budge.”
She warmly thanked the Pedinottis and wrote, “I know the house will continue on as a beautiful reminder of the merits of staying power.” Commenters raved about the inspiring story, with my pal Will Levith (from our past days at Saratoga Living) imploring the city or state to turn it into a museum. “Yes, it’s a landmark,” Mouzon responded. “Let’s click our heels and see what happens.”
[Click on the above embed to flip through her family’s beautiful story.]
🏇 🇺🇸 Gonna party like it’s your (250th) birthday
Charles V. Wait, catnip for ‘Hamilton’ buffs, and a George Washington name-drop converge at the Racing museum for a fabulous new exhibit.
Leave it to the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame to race into America’s 250th Birthday (just six months away!) with a banger of an opening party — one that brings together Adirondack Trust’s Charles V. Wait, glory days-loving horse racing fans, and Hamilton buffs.
“Racing at the Dawn of the United States” opened Saturday in the Museum’s Link Gallery, so we asked the museum’s curator, Jessica Cloer, for some highlights. Let’s start with the Turning Point, as in the Turning Point — the first time the British ever surrendered to Americans, which proved crucial in convincing, well, us (and the French) that we could actually win.
“Thanks to a generous loan from Charles V. Wait, the exhibition includes a note written by John Ashley at Fort Hardy (located in present-day Schuylerville) and a letter written by Major General Philip Schuyler dated November 19, 1776 while he was in command of the Northern Department,” Cloer says.
“Also included is a small print of The Surrender of General Burgoyne at Saratoga, New York, October 17th, 1777, by Nathaniel Currier.”
And the connection between America’s big birthday and horse racing?
“Horse racing was the preeminent sport at the time of our nation’s founding 250 years ago,” Cloer says. “Racing occurred both on established courses and informally throughout the colonies. In Maryland alone, there were more than 20 racing centers. Prominent figures of the time, such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, were known to attend race meets.”
For more information, please visit racingmuseum.org or call (518) 584-0400. For Wednesday’s special behind-the-scenes curator’s tour, reserve your ticket here.
This news was brought to you by…
Mark your calendars for Chowderfest, Feb. 7!
📰 IN BRIEF
New Saratoga County health program for our veterans
A new health and wellness program for our veterans has been launched, Saratoga County officials announced today. The impressive initiative — a partnership between the Veterans Service Agency’s Peer Connection Program and the Saratoga Regional YMCA — is being offered at a 75% discounted rate and has specific requirements for the veterans and their wellness efforts.
For more information, interested veterans should contact Peer Connection Program Coordinator Erin Cassidy at 518-605-2899 or visit veteranspeertopeer.org.
‘Love Our Locals’ finished 2025 with a record-breaking tally
Saratoga County’s “Love Our Locals” campaign has announced that its economy-stimulating efforts finished 2025 with another record-breaking tally: $440,726 in purchases and donations.
The program encourages holiday shoppers and donors to submit their receipts of $20.25 or more spent at a Saratoga County business or donated to a local nonprofit to be entered in a gift card giveaway. This year, more than 50 area businesses participated by donating gift cards as prizes, which went to dozens of local winners over the course of eight weeks.
Al Roker event sold out
Saratogians certainly love their celebs. Al Roker’s coming to town Feb. 7 to join 20/20 coanchor Deborah Roberts for a chat about her new book, Sisters Loved and Treasured. But the Northshire Bookstore event is already sold out.
To join the waitlist, visit Northshire’s eventbrite page.
✌️ Remembering Bob Weir
Since the great Bob Weir passed away Saturday, I did some light reach-out for any favorite Grateful Dead/Bobby stories from their many shows at SPAC. As it turned out, I ended up choosing one from Madison Square Garden; an Upstate Dispatch reader traveled there Oct. 14 and 15, 1994 — and ended up singing “Happy Birthday” to “Bobby” with about 15 of his closest friends.
“I was living in Brooklyn, and my friend Amy invited me — we were besties from Upstate,” Lisa says. “Someone knew someone, and we ended up backstage. The show was the most magical thing of my entire life, dancing. It sounds crazy, but it’s true.
“After the concert, we went straight to the Four Seasons, and they wouldn’t let us in. Bob arranged for someone to come and get us, so we snuck in with a cart of alcohol. Jerry was having health problems by then, so he wasn’t there.
“It was Saturday night, and they didn’t have a concert the next day, his birthday, so they turned this hotel room after-party into a little birthday party. We all sang ‘Happy Birthday.’ There was no cell phones, no cameras, none of that. It was such a beautiful moment.”
❄️ Disco Inferno was fire
One of the biggest local bonfires ever (says...us), a possible shooting star, and a wild Bills win? Dancing Grain had quite a weekend.
Dancing Grain’s founder and maestro Rachel McDermott is still counting the donations (for the South Glens Falls Fire Company) from Saturday’s epic Disco Inferno, but she is beyond thrilled by the turnout.
“It was a great day of sledding for the kids, and a great afternoon around the bonfire,” she says of the brewery’s Annual Christmas Tree Bonfire that is exactly what it sounds like: a post-holiday burning of no-longer-needed Christmas trees. “I am so grateful to our sponsors — Casella Waste Management and All Star System TV — and the incredible number of people who came out.”
A record 280 Christmas trees were donated to the effort, and 200 were used in what has to be one of the biggest bonfires on record in this corner of Upstate New York. To add to the rather cathartic fun, Dancing Grain served its new beer, Crop Circles Disco Inferno, a double IPA with “juicy waves of mango, overripe orange and tropical candy” up top, “followed by a deep, resinous backbone of sticky pine.”
“Holy heck — THANK YOU,” the brewery captioned its social media posts; one fan wrote that he spotted a shooting star in the video.
“It was a great example of what Dancing Grain always does so well,” says Laura Tilton, who came to sled with her 13-year-old son, Declan. “It brought people together and created an awesome environment for family and friends across generations.”
On Sunday, McDermott kept the party going by playing the Buffalo Bills’ heart-pounding, end-of-game triumph over the Jaguars.
ICYMI…
Cheesecake, prime rib, ‘glorious’ crusty rolls with ‘pillowy interior’: the dish on Elody
Forecast: Jan. 17 Snow Day fun for all ages
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