DAKAR, SENEGAL — Melissa Myers from the Jason Morris Judo Center in Glenville won her first world tour event on Nov. 13, earning a gold medal at the Dakar Open in Senegal.

This result moves Myers into the top 100 on the world rankings for the first time in her career, as she now sits at #97 in the 70 kg weight class. Myers will stay on for the training camp in Senegal, then will compete on the second leg of the African tour this weekend in Yaounde, Cameroon, before returning to the USA. 

While Myers was in Dakar, her JMJC teammates were competing at the Ontario Open in Toronto. Jess Alaynick captured a gold in the +78 kg Under-21 division, while Justin Mata claimed a Silver medal in the 60 kg Under-21 category. 

Two-time Olympian Nick Delpopolo was a double medalist on the day, winning a bronze in the 81 kg Seniors division as well as picking up a bronze in the Open Weight category to close out the JMJC medal count.

Saratoga Springs — Coach Rich Johns recently presented his Act With Respect Always message to the players and parents of the City’s Introduction to Hoops Program at the Saratoga Springs Recreation Center. After presenting, Coach Johns is seen here with one of the young hoopers, Christian McDonnell. Christian was presented with a book Coach shared with players and is wearing his new AWRA shirt.

SARATOGA SPRINGS —The Christopher Dailey Foundation Turkey Trot returns this Thanksgiving, Nov. 24, for the 21st annual running of the 5K. 

The 5K will begin at 8:30 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day, with the run starting on Broadway near the Saratoga Springs City Hall. Registration for the event costs $29, and online registration must be completed by Nov. 22. 

Participants can still register in person from 4 to 8 p.m. on Nov. 23 at the Saratoga Hilton Hotel, where the Dailey Foundation will be holding packet pick-up for runners. Packet pick-up will also run from 6 to 8 a.m. on the day of the race. Day-of registration is not available for the 5K.

The first Turkey Trot was held in 2002, in memory of eight-year-old Christopher Dailey, who passed away in 2001. Laura Rose Dailey, a board member of the Dailey Foundation and Christopher’s sister, said the Foundation held its first fundraiser in May 2002, a golf tournament, before starting the Turkey Trot that fall.

The initial Turkey Trot took place in the Dailey’s neighborhood, and saw roughly 300 people in attendance, Dailey said. Every year since, the Trot has been held in downtown Saratoga, with this year’s route beginning on Broadway, looping through the Skidmore College campus, and finishing on North Broadway.

Dailey said roughly 3,000 to 4,000 people attend the Turkey Trot each year, which acts as a fundraiser for the Christopher Dailey Foundation, using the funds to help the Saratoga community.

“Our original goal and mission for the first few years of the foundation was to build a gym at Gavin Park, where he spent a lot of time, I spent a lot of time,” said Dailey. “It was around the corner from where we lived.”

The Christopher Dailey Memorial Youth Gymnasium opened at Gavin Park in 2006, and in the years since, the Foundation has used fundraising efforts to give even more back to the community.

“In the past, I’d say five or six years, we’ve transitioned to more just basic economic needs,” Dailey said. “My mom works really closely with the Franklin Community Center for clothes and jackets, shoes. We work really closely with sending kids home with food for the weekend.”

The Turkey Trot has grown so much that people “from all over the country” will show up on Thanksgiving morning by way of local family members, Dailey said.

“A ton of people whose families come from out of town will do the race, so we’ll have people from all over the country that do it, which also feels pretty cool,” said Dailey. 

“Now, in the past couple years, we’ve been getting messages like, ‘I was at this vintage store in North Carolina and I saw a Christopher Dailey Turkey Trot shirt.’ That’s also been kind of cool, to see the way that those float around.”

Dailey said that she, along with her brother Brendan, are preparing to take over control of the Christopher Dailey Foundation’s board as their parents, Mark and Maria, transition out of the roles.

“My brother and I are going to start kind of taking it over,” said Dailey. “Him and I joined the board in January of last year, and we are adding a few board members of our own, with the intention of, in 2024, just being him and I and our board members.”

And Dailey noted that the opportunity to help the community while remembering Christopher is a special one.

“For me, Chris was 8 when he died and I was 12. To still be able to have everyone remember him every year, I just think it’s so rad,” said Dailey. “And to do it in the name of giving back to the Saratoga community, I just feel really lucky and blessed for that.”

SCHUYLERVILLE — The Schuylerville varsity girls cross country team capped off a great season on Saturday, finishing 8th at the New York State Class C Championships at Vernon-Verona-Sherrill High School.

The Black Horses reached the state finals by capturing the Section 2 Class C Championship at Queensbury High School on Nov. 5. Schuylerville boys’ runner James Lynch also qualified for states during the Section 2 Championships.

Adeline Ballou led the way for the Schuylerville girls’ team at states, finishing 18th (20:29.60). Megan Vianese (20:45.30) finished 22nd, while Nikki Stark (23:29.10) and Hannah Yonkin (23:29.40) finished 98th and 99th, respectively. 

Lynch, the lone boys’ runner at states for the Black Horses, finished 43rd (18:28.90).

The Black Horses’ girls’ team reached states by cruising to victory in the Sectional Championships, finishing 49 points ahead of second-place Broadalbin-Perth. The team was led by Vianese (20:13.0) and Ballou (20:26.9), who finished second and third, respectively. 

Stark (22:26.2) placed 11th, while Yonkin finished 15th (22:56.2). Lillian Letzring placed 22nd (23:35.5), with Taylor Brown finishing 32nd (24:09.1). Kayleigh Hays (24:45.8) was 39th, while Paige Nesbitt was 44th (25:03.4). 

Lynch clinched his spot in the State Championships by finishing eighth in the boys’ race with a time of 17:23.3. The Schuylerville boys team finished 7th.

PERTH, Australia — Kell Berliner from the Jason Morris Judo Center in Scotia finished in seventh place at the Perth Open on Oct. 30, 2022, in Perth, Australia.

Berliner advanced to the quarterfinals of the Open, falling to Germany’s Lukas Vennekold in overtime. This finish jumped the 28-year-old Berliner up to a world ranking of #77 in the 81-kg weight class.

SARATOGA SPRINGS — The Skidmore men’s hockey team is off to a fast start, winning four of their first five games, including a victory on Saturday over the then-#2 team in Division III. However, the Thoroughbreds are simply aiming “to just get better each day.”

Skidmore begins NEHC play this weekend, and head coach Rob Hutchison said the team is looking to take things day-by-day, noting that this year is “a new group.”

“A lot of returning guys, but it’s a new group, a new year, and we don’t want to worry too much about things in the past, other than allowing them to maybe drive us or motivate us,” said Hutchison. “Really, our focus has solely been on getting better each day. Making sure guys are healthy, and moving forward and progressing, and as a group (that) we’re getting better and making progress.”

The Thoroughbreds’ most recent contest was a 4-3 victory over SUNY Geneseo, which was the #2 team in the USCHO Division III poll at the time. Hutchison said the win helped Skidmore gain “perspective on kind of where we’re at.”

“Geneseo’s had a really good program for years,” Hutchison said. “We knew it was going to be a tough one for us, and the guys rose to the challenge. They executed our gameplan, and we buried our chances.”

All four of the Thoroughbreds’ goals against Geneseo came on the powerplay, which Hutchison noted has been “finding some connection” early on in the season. Sophomore forward Zach Lindewirth scored the game-winning goal at 9:45 of the third period, and junior goaltender Tate Brandon made 36 saves in the win.

Skidmore is 4-1-0 in their first five games, winning four straight after dropping the season opener to Chatham University in overtime. Hutchison said the strong start has helped the team build confidence and find their identity.

“You can always improve, but I think that the most important thing is getting those wins early, building some confidence, learning how your team is going to win games and what the identity is,” said Hutchison. “For us, it’s been a productive two weeks in the opening going here, just kind of seeing how we’re going to go about winning games.”

This weekend, Skidmore will open conference play with road contests against NEHC opponents New England College and 10th-ranked Norwich University. Hutchison said the weekend will be “a really good test.”

“We’re going to have to play good defensive hockey. Both teams have a lot of offensive threats. Both venues are challenging places to play for different reasons. Both are very good programs, well-coached teams,” Hutchison said. “We’re really just looking to execute a gameplan, stay focused on the things that allow for us to be successful, and then play good defensive hockey.”

The Thoroughbreds went all the way to the NEHC championship game last season, falling 5-3 against Babson College. Hutchison said, however, that the team is “trying to take this year as a new year.”

“We know what’s ahead of us with the 18 league games. Everybody’s good,” said Hutchison. “This weekend will be a really good test; we’re facing two really good opponents. It’s our first overnight road trip, which adds another element of adversity, which we love early on. But I think the focal point has been just kind of getting better each day and focusing on one opponent at a time.”

As Skidmore has progressed through the week, Hutchison said the team has been focused on avoiding complacency following a strong week that included three wins for the Thoroughbreds.

“You come off a nice win, a nice high of a 3-0 week and it culminates with a win over a top five team, and not coming in Monday with any sort of complacency,” Hutchison said. “Come into the Monday morning practice with an itch to get better and make progress throughout the week.

“So really, just keeping our scope narrow, and our focus on the day-to-day.”

Skidmore (4-1-0) plays at New England College (1-2-0) at 7 p.m. Friday, and at #10 Norwich (3-0-0) at 4 p.m. on Saturday. 

The 2022 Breeders’ Cup World Championships delivered everything racing fans could ask for and quite a bit more. In a bucolic Fall setting under beautiful blue skies, racing fans in Kentucky witnessed a full weekend of quality competitive races in a full but comfortable setting at Keeneland Race Course. Both the Friday card that highlighted two-year-old stars of the future and Saturday’s undercard before the Breeders’ Cup Classic featured championship quality racing with European runners shining bright in the grass races and horses which ran this year at Saratoga Race Course acquitting themselves well on the big stage. 

On Saturday, when older filly Malathaat willed her way to a nose victory over two rivals in a blanket finish in the Distaff for fillies and mares, racing fans witnessed racing at its finest – a well-contested fair contest over a distance of ground among quality horses. The crowd was electrified by the run of the three fillies to the wire and many anxious moments were spent reviewing replays until the photo finish camera confirmed Malathaat’s minuscule margin of victory over longshot Blue Stripe and classy filly Clariere.  Hall of Fame rider John R. Velazquez told me the next day “Malathaat just kept trying” and that effort delivered her well-deserved championship for fillies and mares.  

As good as that race was, it just an appetizer for an even more awe-inspiring equine effort ninety minutes later.

For this year’s $6 million Breeders’ Cup Classic the story approaching the race was clearly Flightline – the undefeated and untested son of top sire Tapit. Flightline had run brilliantly but sparingly over his brief and conservatively-managed career and the debate on where he stood in the pantheon of thoroughbred champions would be answered in this race. The ease and manner of his prior victories prompted his backers to compare him to the historical titans of the sport while skeptics questioned the quality of the competition he had easily vanquished. The debate reached a fever pitch in the weeks, days and hours before the classic and as Mark Twain observed “It were not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion that makes horse-races.” In an instance that is all too rare in modern horse racing, the Breeders’ Cup Classic last Saturday shaped up as a time where the question of Flightline’s greatness could be definitively proven on the racetrack. 

It was.

The deep and quality field that lined up against Flightline contained most of the top horses of the 2022 year including a horse with blazing early speed as well as those that relished finishing strongly late in the race. The potential dilemma faced by Flightline’s rider Flavien Prat was too passive a ride risked allowing the speed horse Life Is Good to lope along on an easy lead making him difficult to catch while engaging early in the race with that speedy runner could leave Flightline vulnerable late in the race to the deep closers behind him. 

 It didn’t matter. 

From the break, Flightline’s raw talent allowed him to stay close to Life Is Good during very fast early fractions, that same talent allowed him to easily pass that rival and draw away from the top of the stretch to the wire. He was never threatened as the closers made no impact. The ease of his 8-length victory over top caliber runners left novice and veteran observers speechless; some were moved to tears; all acknowledged his greatness. 

There was nothing to debate, nothing to do other than cheer. The doubters nodded in respect, the believers breathed a sigh of relief, the vanquished saluted the victor.

The debate was over.

Such was his domination of the racing world that he was immediately retired to the breeding shed. Nothing further to prove, no more foes to spar with, Flightline saw a 2.5% share of his ownership sell at auction shortly after the race for $4.6 million (imputing a staggering value of $184 million). We will now have to await his progeny to carry on his legacy.

The effort was such that this writer cannot do it full justice.  Flightline’s victory was simply dominant.

In the stands and in the city the two-day race meet was well handled by the Keeneland Race Course and the Breeders’ Cup staff. Classy and comfortable surroundings, courteous and dignified staff, manageable betting and food lines and knowledgeable fans made for a thoroughly enjoyable experience. In recent years the Breeders’ Cup has truly reached its goal of becoming a two-day world class event. 

The Breeders’ Cup presence was ubiquitous throughout the city of Lexington as a celebration of the horses and those that care for them. The attention to detail by the Breeder’s Cup and Keeneland staff was remarkable both on and off the track. 

Those that have not attended the Breeders’ Cup should make a point to do so in the future – those that have attended know it is an experience worth reprising. The 2023 Breeders’ Cup is November 3-4 in Arcadia California’s Santa Anita Park – mark your calendar.