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.
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.