Beloved Saratoga horse racing fan lands photo in Racing museum
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Opera Saratoga presents La boheme, a concert version of Puccini’s timeless masterpiece. Featuring local and national talent, this first-ever holiday production brings together the magic of Juilliard, The Metropolitan Opera, Skidmore Chorus and Excelsior Vocal Ensemble.
UPH | Friday, Dec. 5 at 7 p.m.
Tickets: atuph.com
Beloved Saratoga horse racing fan lands photo in Racing museum
Fourth generation Saratogian Sue Jeffreys was a child shutterbug who snapped pics and listened to her grandfather’s stories at Saratoga Race Course.
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SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY — Fourth generation Saratogian Sue Jeffreys had a dream come true this weekend. The lifelong track shutterbug got to take her family to the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame to see one of her photos on display.
Sue’s photograph, “Winter’s Whitney Stand,” is a serene look at the Oklahoma Training Track’s famous stand, covered in snow beneath a purple sky. It was her third time entering, so she was overjoyed when she was chosen this year to be part of the seventh annual “Photo Finish” exhibit (now to Dec. 28). The collection is made up of 42 selected amateur and professional photographs.
“It has a serene, somber look so maybe they grabbed it because it was different from the other ones,” says Sue, who lives with her husband, Billy Jeffreys, in her grandparents’ old house along the Oklahoma. After the couple — and their adult children, Drew and Mia, and their families — took in the exhibit, they went to Morton’s to celebrate. “They were so proud of me,” Sue says. “Usually, the moms are giving the push, but all of a sudden I had my five-minute moment of stardom in front of them. It was so cute.”
Sue is a long-time lover and supporter of the track who even has a brick at the museum engraved in her name. “Growing up with my grandfather, we’d be sitting in those boxes, and I’d listen to these old guys telling their stories,” she says. “I grew up on Nelson Avenue. We lived in Saratoga all my life.”
Sue and Billy have since purchased and live in her grandfather’s old house, which sits along the Oklahoma. “I was here all the time as a little girl anyway, so it was my home away from home,” Sue says. “My grandpa always had this house, since the ‘60s when they developed this area. So I basically grew up here.”
Once a child shutterbug, Sue has continued to take photos of the horses over the years. For her third entry into “Photo Finish,” she submitted photos of the lonely-looking Whitney stand off-season. Its museum plaque says, “A beautiful sight even in winter. The Whitney Stand watching over the desolate Oklahoma Training Track.”
“I sent in an autumn one, too, that was really, really cool,” she says. “But they liked this one. It was so beautiful — all the trees kept the snow on that day. You know how sometimes that doesn’t happen because there are no leaves, but that day the snow just clung on. It was so pretty, and I just snapped the photo.”
“Photo Finish” will be on display at the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame until Dec. 26. For more info, visit racingmuseum.org.
Still in Spooky Season mode? Canfield Casino has your back
Circular Street’s famous Batcheller Mansion — which stars in many a Saratoga ghost tour — has secrets known only to a chosen few. And now there’s a party going down that promises to shed new light on some of its tales. Thursday’s A Spirited Evening: A Paranormal Experience at the Haunted Canfield Casino promises “a night of dinner, drinks, and real ghost stories.” The party, from 6 to 10 p.m., is $150 GA and $140 for museum members. To get pumped up, visit the Saratoga History Museum’s Instagram page to read about 🏰✨ The Batcheller Mansion: Saratoga’s Own “House of Pleasure.”
Last call for tickets at saratogahistory.org.
Voting today? (Correct answer: “yes!”) Skidmore students need 3 minutes of your time
Make your voice heard — the nonprofit SPI Polling Institute founded at Skidmore invites Saratogians to participate in a historic survey about the 2025 elections. (More participation equals better accuracy.) You have until Friday to fill out the poll, which was designed in consultation with Patrick Lanne, a pollster with Public Opinion Strategies. The SPI Polling Institute is a non-partisan academic polling institution that conducts local and regional surveys on political and social issues in Saratoga Springs and the Capital District. The results will be shared in a public forum after the election, and the data is used by the college’s Real Democracy class — taught by Bob Turner, chair and associate professor of political science — to analyze the election and present results to the community.
To take the survey, visit skidmore.qualtrics.com.
Seen on the Northway
Local horse racing fervor knows no bounds. Great eye and fast camera skills from Twitter’s Infield Goose. That is all.
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