‘Every three years the Baker Street Irregulars, the premier Sherlock Holmes Society in the US has a weekend meeting centered around the flat track at Saratoga. The event starts Friday night with several attendees pregaming with dinner and libations. They stay at the Desmond in Albany. Since our house in Lake George is only thirty minutes from the track we pregame at our house and meet the rest at the track on Saturday afternoon. On Sunday morning there are speakers that discuss two of the stories in the CANON (all the Sherlock Holmes Stories). Since we don’t sleep over with the rest of the group (in separate rooms of course!), we don’t attend the breakfast. You are spared a recounting of Sunday mornings adventures at the meeting. I can hear a collective sigh of relief!
I am not that into Sherlock Holmes, preferring as you all know, Romance stories and Erotica. But, as a dutiful spouse, I tag along to the meetings in Poughkeepsie presented by our local Scion-The Hudson Valley Sciontologists. Not to be confused with scientists, or Sinologists or Scientologists!
Going to the track in Saratoga is always a fun day, and I get to wear a hat! So far I have worn my fancy hat about four times. That brings it down to almost $50 a wearing. Hopefully the hat will soon pay me to be worn!
There is a fancy hat shop in Saratoga, the hats there are about $800 each. Needless to say, I covet them. However as we don’t own a horse, I am not getting that fancy a hat. Although it is cheaper than a Hermès Birkin handbag!
Well, enough background, let’s go to the Races! Saratoga is only open about six weeks a year. It was opened in 1863. The big race of the year is the Travers race. Which often has some of the horses that entered the Derby, Preakness and Belmont. Many years ago Steve and I were there to witness the battle between Affirmed and Alydar in 1978. I can’t remember anything about that day except it was very crowded!
I have done a little research for you to help me try to remember why that day was so special. The horses had raced against each other nine times before. Affirmed had won the Triple Crown, Alydar had won only two of the other nine races. Many of the races were quite close, with Affirmed beating Alydar by a nose in one race! So the stakes were quite high! It was going to be quite the spectacle, over 50,000 fans were there to watch the race. Affirmed was disqualified during the race, and Alydar was declared the winner of their last final race. Many of the fans were booing and quite upset.
Here is a link to the horse race. Affirmed and Alydar 
Here we see Steve checking the Program guide with Charlie. No, the man with the glasses is not checking me out, there was a television monitor displaying the odds and horses. We were in the Pavilion. We had a buffet, and the room was air conditioned. Always nice on a hot day. However you really don’t have the same feeling as you do sitting out in the Club House or Grandstand.
Here I am in my nice red hat and basic black. The official Baker Street Irregular colors were black and red. I do aim to please! I bought the top with Sally when we last visited my Mother. I thought the top looked a bit silly on the rack, but it looked great on a real body!
There are always interesting characters at the track. I loved the guy on the left with his blue and white jacket with stars and bright red pants! Then there was the suave guy with the plaid jacket and shirt open down to there! 
This is my collection from the dessert buffet. I tried everything , even though they were not very tasty. 
At one point we did go outside to watch a race. The white tent in the back is where the Pavilion is located. That sexy brown and white shoulder is Joan. 
One of the other ladies in our group wore a red hat also. I am biased and like mine a bit better!
The number four horse was called “Grandma Gertie”. Joan wanted money bet on her as she had a Grandma named Gertie. Did she win? Who knows? Perhaps Joan will answer in a comment!
This gentleman and his lovely wife came all the way from Ohio to attend the race and the conference. I of course asked him if he was bald, as so many gentleman wear hats now when they are bald. He surprised me with his beautiful head of hair! 
Here is closeup of her hat! It was really a cream color. 
After realizing that he had made ten cents for the day, Steve agreed to call it an early day and we should go for an early dinner and walk to the restaurant. I am not sure how Steve and Charlie did, but another couple from our group was quite successful. I am not sure how well Lee did, but he did win $39 one race! 
So we said goodbye to the track and were off to Siro’s. sirosny.com
Here are Joan and Charlie, along with Steve checking out the restaurant. No Joan is not checking out the man’s butt, her head is much more elevated. Plus she has seen much better butts.
There is also an outside bar at Siro’s that is quite popular. We ate in the restaurant, which held a much more night class crowd.
All during dinner I was scanning the room. I was looking for famous people, but none showed up while we were there. At one point I joked that I was going to grab the reservation book to look up who was going to be there! Last time we were there I saw Curtis Sliwa and Arthur Aidala.
Steve and Charlie had the salad with nuts and raspberries.
Nancy and Lee elected to share the 2 pound lobster. At $30 per pound, the waiter was trying to upsell them to a larger lobster. Lee and Nancy thought the starter lobster would be sufficient. It was. They did offer a four pounder at $120!
Here is the lobster deshelled. There was a lot of meat. 
I had the halibut with creamed corn. It was very good.
Joan had the mahi mahi. The sauces were really good. 
Steve had the swordfish that was a wee bit over cooked. He said the risotto was really good, although a trifle heavy. 
Charlie had the duck. It was cooked in the sous vide method, so he wasn’t crazy about it.
No room for the dessert. I am sure it was yummy. Do you think the ricotta fritters and the cherry clafouti were free?
Dinner was over and Steve and I headed back north to our place in Lake George. Charlie and Joan headed back to Albany for the presentations in the morning. Lee and Nancy headed home. We were happy that we asked for our reservations to be moved up to 5:30 from 6:30 as people down the hill from us were going to put on a fireworks show. Here are the last 2 and a half minutes of the show.
Do you like Sherlock Holmes?
Do you prefer the flat track, or harness racing?
Would you rather bet and win or not bet at all since you hate losing?
Do you like fireworks?