Closeup of a tennis ball that has been modified for visually impaired players. Photos by Jonathon Norcross.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Camp Abilities Saratoga held its first-ever blind tennis program on Monday afternoon, allowing children and teens with visual impairments to serve, volley, and smash at Skidmore College’s new McCaffery-Wagman Tennis and Wellness Center.
The game is modified to include soft plush balls filled with rattles so that players can hear where the ball is located. Although the balls don’t have the same bounce as a typical tennis ball, they are larger and thus easier to hit with a racket. The courts are also condensed to include only the service boxes. Tactile strips are placed at the service line and around the service boxes so that players can feel when they’re about to head out-of-bounds. The rules are also altered so that, depending on the player’s level of visual impairment, they can allow the ball to bounce anywhere from one to three times before returning it. And although spectators might want to cheer, they’re required to keep quiet so that players can auditorily track the ball.
“We just wanted to bring blind tennis to the world and introduce it to more people, to get the sport developed a lot more,” Camp Director Tiffany Suppes told Saratoga TODAY. “And it just so happens, it’s the same year that Skidmore finished the [tennis] courts, so it worked perfectly for us.”
Suppes said that Camp Abilities Saratoga pairs up its campers one-on-one with coaches who can help modify and adapt any sport or activity to suit the needs of individual campers. The camp also has sports specialists that oversee and teach activities.
Camp Abilities Saratoga runs until Aug. 9 on Skidmore’s campus, where around two dozen campers participate in a variety of sports, including beep baseball, swimming, goal ball, track, tandem biking, and tennis.
Camp Abilities Saratoga was founded in 2013 as a service project of the Saratoga Springs Lions Club, modeled after Camp Abilities Brockport. Its mission includes promoting physical activity among children who are blind, visually impaired, or deaf blind; supporting future educators; and demonstrating to families each child’s potential for independence in an inclusive, enriching environment.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — The two-night Saratoga Sale at Fasig-Tipton shattered previously established records for gross, average, and median, including topping gross sales of $100,000,000 for the first time in the sale’s history.
The $4,100,000 sale topper, Hip 218 (a colt by Into Mischief), was the most expensive Saratoga yearling sold in 25 years. Sixteen yearlings sold for seven figures during the Tuesday session – a record for single-session million-dollar sales – while a total of 25 million-dollar yearlings sold over the course of the two nights, annihilating the previous record set in 2021 of 14 million-dollar yearlings sold over two nights.
The second-highest priced yearling of the evening was also a colt by multiple champion sire Into Mischief (Hip 178), sold for $3,000,000. The bay colt is out of the Grade 1 placed winning Bernardini mare Lady Kate and was bred in Kentucky by Stonestreet Thoroughbred Holdings.
“It was a remarkable two days,” said Fasig-Tipton President Boyd Browning in a news release. “We’ve been selling at Saratoga for 104 years, so it’s not an overnight sensation. It’s the culmination of many years of hard work and sweat. We try to work hard and do the right thing and on nights like these it all comes together like magic.”
Other notable sales included:
• A Gun Runner (Hip 179) half-brother to last year’s Demoiselle S. (G2) winner Muhimma sold for $2,900,000;
• Another colt by Into Mischief (Hip 163), this out of the multiple Grade 1 winning multimillionaire I’m a Chatterbox, sold for $2,600,000;
• A filly by Gun Runner (Hip 175) sold for $2,600,000;
• A colt by Flightline (Hip 176) was sold for $1,800,000;
• A colt by the late Uncle Mo (Hip 219) was also sold for $1,800,000;
• A filly by Gun Runner (Hip 200), the first foal out of speedy Kentucky Oaks (G1) winner Shedaresthedevil, sold for $1,475,000;
• A colt by successful young sire Not This Time (Hip 150) sold for $1,400,000;
• A colt by Bolt d’Oro (Hip 214) also went for $1,400,000;
• In addition to the sale topper, a second colt by Into Mischief (Hip 123) sold for $1,250,000.
Over the span of two nights, 160 yearlings sold for $100,715,000, a sale record gross and an increase of 22.6% over the then-record gross established last year when 154 yearlings sold for $82,160,000. The average was $629,469, up 18% over the highwater mark set last year of $533,506. The median rose 5.9% to $450,000 to establish a new record over last year’s median $425,000. The RNA rate was just 12.3%, the lowest in this sale’s history since 1981.
A slide from a presentation delivered by NYRA’s Glen Kozak shows weather stations and forecasts at the Saratoga Race Course. Image via the Jockey Club’s “Weather Wise: How Sports and Racing Are Adapting” panel discussion in Saratoga Springs on July 31.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — On the turf or off the turf? For horse racing fans, the answer to this question can be more important than Hamlet’s existential query, “To be, or not to be?”
A panel discussion held in Saratoga Springs last week helped shed light on how the New York Racing Association (NYRA) monitors weather forecasts, which can decide whether conditions will allow races to be run on or off the turf (or, in more extreme cases, whether races will be run at all).
Glen Kozak, NYRA’s executive vice president of operations and capital projects, said that NYRA collects its own data via three weather stations on the Saratoga Race Course property. These stations capture data pertaining to moisture, temperature, wind speed, and air quality (the last of which has increasingly become an issue due to wildfires in Canada).
Kozak credited Kaleb Dempsey of the Racing Surfaces Testing Laboratory with designing the equipment that provides real-time data that impacts not only decisions related to turf racing but also the track’s scheduling plans in general.
NYRA also utilizes the services of three on-call weather agencies, allowing them to consult with meteorologists whenever necessary.
“Dealing with the weather services, we’re able to get information on how we prepare the track, what we’re doing with the track; and then it’s the discussions with the racing office and the officials on what we would do for the day,” Kozak said.
Weather (pun intended) horse racing fans agree or disagree with NYRA’s decisions to alter or reschedule certain races, it can’t be denied that such decisions are well-substantiated.
For the second week in a row, a haze fell over Saratoga County as wildfire smoke continued to penetrate the landscape.
On Aug 4 and 5 Federal and private monitors in the capitol region showed air quality index levels above 100 — making the air unsafe for sensitive groups — while some monitors in Saratoga County showed air quality levels above 150 — dangerous for all people.
With the continued downturn in air quality, Saratoga TODAY looked at what’s causing this problem and whether it will get worse.
What’s causing drops in air quality?
In the US, air quality drops have been associated with smoke coming from wildfires currently taking place in Canada. Smoke from fires over 1000 away from Saratoga has been travelling southeast, across the Midwest and into New York.
According to the latest situation report from the Canadian Interagency Forrest Fire Centre (CIFF), there are currently 737 active fires impacting the country. Of those, 504 are considered out of control with 199 receiving a full response and 305 receiving a monitored response.
Where are the fires taking place?
The fires are taking place largely beyond where most of the population of both Canada and the US would be directly impacted by the blazes. According to CIFF, most of the fires are taking place out west in the northern parts of Western Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. There are also clusters of fires in Canada’s Northernmost territories of Yukon and Northwest Territories, as well as out east on the island of Newfoundland.
A map of the wildfires in Canada. Red dots indicate a fire that’s out of control and receiving a full response, purple indicates a fire that’s out of control but being monitored, yellow indicates a fire that’s been held to a specific area and blue indicates a fire that’s been contained and in the process of being extinguished ( Courtesy of CIFF)
While Canada is the second largest country in the world by landmass, most of it’s population is clustered in major cities such as Toronto and Montreal in the east and Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver in the west, according to population maps from statistics Canada.
As a result, most of the fires are taking place far away from population centers. While there have been multiple evacuation orders in the provinces impacted by the blazes, many of these are primarily in small rural communities.
Is this normal?
Across North America, wildfires are a natural phenomenon. In Canada specifically, the fires serve to help a forest recycle debris and prevent build up, according to Parks Canada.
Fire is also one of the ways forestry services deal with wildfire conditions. As part of many forest management plans, agencies will start fires in what are prescribed burns, according to the National Park Service. These fires reduce fuel build up and allow an area to go through its natural processes in a more controlled way. Fires are even used locally in Saratoga National Park to help keep the battlefield in similar condition to what it was during the battle 250 years ago.
While fires themselves may be natural, the current conditions aren’t. Since 1983, when data on wildfires was first collected and reported in Canada, there has been only two fire seasons worse than the one currently being experienced — 1994 and 2023.
These worsening fire conditions have been attributed to climate change. According to Natural Resources Canada, because the air is becoming warmer and drier, wildfire seasons have been getting longer and more intense. This can be seen in drought conditions which show much of Canada experiencing abnormally high levels of dryness — particularly in areas currently dealing with the fires.
Canada has also had to deal with “zombie fires” or fires that lay dormant beneath the permafrost and snow for months before sparking back up when conditions are ripe for fires, according to NOAA.
How does this compare to the US?
Despite sharing a long border and working together on many wildfire responses, there are some notable differences between how the US and Canada experience and deal with fires.
The first major difference is human settlement in fire prone areas. In the US, settlement in wildland areas has gone up by nearly 50% in the last 40 years, according to a study funded by the US Forest Service. This number equates to 32% all housing in the US being in the wildland areas as of 2020.
Meanwhile in Canada, according to data from the Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 12.1% of Canadians live in wildland areas with an estimated 17% of those being in wildfire prone areas.
Beyond just having a lower population in wildland areas, Canada also has fewer fires started by humans. In the US, an estimated 85% of fires are started due to human interaction — be it accidental or due to negligence, according to the US Forest Service. Canada meanwhile sees the majority of their fires sparked by lightning strikes. In 2023 — the worst fire season on record — 93% of fires were as a result of lightning strikes with the remaining 7% caused by humans according to a study by Canada’s natural resource department.
What’s the impact on Saratoga?
In light of the of these fires, the New York Department of Health has advised residents to keep an eye on air quality levels and consider moving events inside — especially for those in high-risk groups.
“Poor air quality can pose serious health risks — especially for those with heart conditions, lung diseases, such as asthma, young children, those over 65 years old and pregnant individuals,” New York State Health Commissioner Dr. James McDonald said “To reduce exposure, limit strenuous activity outdoors. We encourage all New Yorkers to visit airnow.gov for the latest air quality forecast and be on the lookout for Air Quality Health Advisories from the Department of Environmental Conservation and the Department of Health.”
A parking meter on the Putnam Street Parking Deck ( Thomas Dimopoulos)
Roads and parking were two of the main focuses of this week’s Saratoga Springs City Council meeting.
The council considered a bill that would suspend seasonal parking fees for two days and held it’s first hearing on a bill that would reduce the speed limit in the city from 30 to 25 mph.
These were just two of the items on the agenda for the city this week. Here is a rundown of major events and happenings from City Council.
Parking bill fails to pass.
A proposal to give residents and visitors two days of fee-free seasonal parking failed to gain traction in city council.
The bill was designed to promote economic activity and support businesses downtown. Under the bill, two days would be selected by the Commissioner of Public Works to have no fees on parking in city owned garages and surface lots.
Commissioner of Public Works, Chuck Marshall proposed the bill because he didn’t expect the paid parking program to reach its anticipated financial goals and he wanted to give two days back to the business community.
Marshall has consistently been opposed to the paid parking program and argued that since they’re not going to get their promised revenue from the program, then the program should be temporarily suspended to incentivize people to stay in the downtown area particularly after major events such as shows at SPAC or important races at the track.
When presented before City Council, the proposal met stiff opposition from other council members. Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran argued that cutting off revenue was financially unsound while Public Safety Commissioner Tim Coll wanted a full year to review the program and its impact on the city.
Ultimately, these concerns won out as the measure failed to pass by a vote of 3-1 with Coll, Moran and Mayor John Safford opposing the measure and Marshall supporting it.
Residents voice opinions on proposed drop in speed limit.
A Proposal to reduce the city’s speed limit to 25 mph held it’s first public hearing this week. The measure has been proposed by Public Safety Commissioner Coll in order to make the streets of Saratoga Springs safer.
Before the public got a chance to speak, a presentation was made by Safe Streets outlining how reducing the speed limit would reduce traffic injuries without significantly increasing travel times. According to Safe Streets, accidents at 20 mph had a 90% survival rate while accidents at 40 mph had a 100% survival rate. At the same time, the mile time from 30 mph to 25 mph was only reduced by 24 seconds.
The proposed speed limit reduction had widespread support from members of the public. The first speaker, a young boy who said he rides his bike and walks around the city, argued that a slower speed limit would make the roads safer for kids like him. The boy received a round of applause from council members and audience members, and his views were echoed by other speakers.
Many argued that the speed limit had to be reduced and also urged more enforcement of the speed limits both new and current.
The ordinance is set to be voted upon on a later date as city council members wanted to ensure proper time for consideration.
Public hearing set to remove jail time for 39 offenses.
A public hearing has been set on a proposed ordinance that would remove jail time for 39 different municipal offenses.
The proposal, which is coming from the mayor’s office, comes at the urging of Assistant City Attorney Tony Izzo who said that in his 40 years working for the city, there has only been one instance where he can recall someone went to jail for violating city ordinances.
A Dodecahedron — a 12-sided sphere like object — is a common tool used by NCTWC to teach teamwork and woodworking skills. During the week, the girls made several of these to help hammer in soft skills (Aidan Cahill). See Story pg. 13
The second annual Girls Construction Camp recently wrapped up with girls in middle school learning about trades.
The camp was put on by the Northeast Construction Trades Workforce Coalition (NCTWC) and took place at the Whitbeck Construction Education Center in Gansevoort. The camp was the first of two to be held this year — the second being an advanced course.
Doug Ford, the president of the Northeast Construction Trades Workforce Coalition said the idea for the camp came from State Assemblywoman Cathy Woerner. Ford said that Woerner was looking for a way to bridge the gender gap in the trades by exposing girls to careers in the trades at a young age.
“We really want to make sure that young women know that the trades are an opportunity,” Ford said. “There’s no reason for them not to go into the trades with the technology that exists today.”
Ford said that only 10% of jobs in the trades are filled by women. Part of the mission of the camp was to also show that the trades weren’t just physical labor, according to Ford.
“When you talk about the trades, we always seem to focus on the physical aspect,” Ford said. “But there’s a lot of jobs that are part of the trades that aren’t necessarily physical. Project management, design, logistics — all these jobs associated with the trades that never get talked about.”
Job security was a benefit of the trades emphasized by Assemblywoman Mary Beth Walsh (R-112) who addressed campers during the closing ceremony of the camp.
“Jobs are always going to be around,” Walsh said. “You’re always going to need a plumber, you’re always going to need an electrician, you’re always going to need somebody to do HVAC, you’re always going to need a good carpenter. So, there are always going to be really good jobs in the trades and the jobs are only getting better.”
During the weeklong camp, the girls learned about the trades, went on field trips to job sites, saw firsthand the importance of soft skills like communication and got hands on experience working with common tools and materials.
Nora Chanese, an incoming ninth grader at Queensbury High School, talked about how communication on the job site was one of the major challenges the girls faced in the camp.
“It’s definitely been challenging our communication skills,” Chanese said. “There’s been times where we just absolutely fail at communicating and then we just can’t build.”
Chanese said she learned about the camp through a BOCES program that exposed incoming high schoolers to different paths. While Chanese said she is focusing more on sciences for now, she’s very grateful for the skills she learned at the camp.
“This is obviously a needed skill in the future,” Chanese said. “It means I don’t have to always call someone if something breaks — I can fix it myself.”
Under the direction of Matt Whitbeck, Vice President of NCTWC and owner of Whitbeck Construction, the girls built charcutier boards, Viking chairs, flower boxes, sawhorses and other wooden objects.
In addition, the girls participated in team-based competitions, got a look at quarry operations and cared for their respective mascots — two dogs named Buster and Bella. They also learned that the one naughty word on a construction site is “perfect,” according to Whitbeck.
One of the issues Ford said the camp didn’t have to deal with was distractions from smartphones. He said during the camp, they didn’t have to tell a single camper to put away their phones. This lack of distractions was noted by another camper, incoming eighth grader Joe Kelleherstark.
“It was actually really nice,” Kelleherstark said. “Sometimes in school, you don’t have that much teamwork because you’re normally allowed to go on your phone. You’re never talking to your friends at lunch and stuff. This time there were no phones, no nothing. And we were actually focusing very well on each other and helping each other.”
One of the projects the girls worked on was a viking chair. The chair was comprised of two boards interlocking ( Aidan Cahill).
Both Kelleherstark and Chanese said they were exposed to the trades growing up through their grandfathers — Chanese’s was a general contractor while Kelleherstark said hers was involved in building houses.
Kelleherstark said she was considering carpentry as a career since she’s always been building things as a kid. One of the things she was most happy with was how well people got along.
“I’m pretty happy about how people are working together,” Kelleherstark said. “It’s very exciting to see people working together, because sometimes people are just on their own.”
Aerial photos of 460 Crescent Ave. via the property’s official website.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — A massive parcel of land near Lake Loney will be put up for auction next month, the Albany Business Review first reported on Tuesday.
The plot of more than 166 acres at 460 Crescent Ave. is being called “the best property left in Saratoga Springs” by its current owners.
The largely undeveloped land, located just two miles from the Saratoga Race Course, is being advertised as ideal for buyers looking to create either a private estate or a residential development. It will be offered in an on-site auction on Aug. 21 by Spellman & Malloch Real Estate, according to the Albany Business Review.
In a July 24 meeting, the Saratoga Springs School Board approved a state-mandated restriction on cell phones and other internet connected devices.
The policy — which is new for this school year — bans all personal internet connected electronic devices during school hours and on school property except those supplied by the school for learning purposes.
Under the policy, students would not be allowed to access the device during any portion of the day — including during down periods such as lunch or study hall. Under the policy, students are discouraged from bringing devices into schools’ but if they do there are guidelines on how the device is stored.
For elementary school students, they’re required to keep the device in their assigned cubby on silent while students in middle and high school are required to keep the device on silent in their lockers.
Some exceptions to the ban were carved out for students who need the device for medical reasons or for those who need it for translations. Other students whose Individual Education Plan or section 504 plan require personal devices will be allowed to use them.
The ban is a state requirement that came into effect as a part of the budget for the 2026 fiscal year. Under the law, each school district, charter school, and board of cooperative educational services are required to implement a policy by Aug. 1, 2025. It also mandated that each school assemble an annual report on the enforcement of the policy due for first release on Sept. 1, 2026.
Cell phone bans have a long history in New York. In New York City, pagers and beepers were banned in 1988 with cell phones explicitly banned in 2005. This ban survived legal challenges and petitions calling for it to be rescinded, mostly by parents who were concerned about not being able to contact their kids during the day or in times of emergency.
These concerns won out in 2015 when the Mayor de Blasio lifted the ban in February of that year.
10 years later, Governor Cathy Hochul pushed for a new statewide ban, citing safety concerns as well as a desire to see more kids develop better face to face communications skills.
“I want laughter in the hallways again,” Governor Hochul said in an op-ed published on both Fox News and the state of New York Website. “I want to hear real voices in gym class. I want our kids to make eye contact and talk to each other face-to-face. I want teachers to feel free to teach again. And I want to create an environment where kids can actually learn and just be kids again.”
As for concerns about not being able to contact kids, especially in times of emergency, Governor Hochul argued that cell phones could distract students from getting to safety. This sentiment was echoed in the policy implemented in Saratoga Springs.
“In an emergency, the use of personal electronic devices can distract students from following the directions of staff or emergency responders, contribute to the spread of misinformation, create congestion in the emergency response system, and interfere with the district’s emergency response protocols,” The policy stated in its introduction.
Students who violate the policy will have their device confiscated and placed in the office. For the first offence, their parent or guardian will be notified, however the student will be able to retrieve the device themselves. Subsequent offences will result in the parent being required to pick up the device as well as the potential for the device to be held for a longer period of time.
While the policy explicitly states that it alone can’t be used as justification for out of school suspension, it did list other consequences for violators.
“The district may utilize consequences under the district’s Code of Conduct, including detention, in school suspension, and exclusion from extracurricular activities,” The Policy States. “The district may also utilize assignments on the detrimental impact of social media on mental health, smartphones in school, or other relevant topics.”
