“Solenzano had worked hard for me for several years and I thought I’d do the old fellow a favor and retire him,” said Bill Mott about his stable pony. “I took him to a friend’s farm where I knew he would get good care, and I set off for the racing season. When I got back, my buddy told me I’d better come out to look at him.”

Dance Fever

Studio PRIME was the scene of a true disco inferno on Saturday, August 4. Dancing started promptly at 6 p.m., as Margie and Michael Rotchford welcomed their first guests. The Dennis Collins Band beckoned Teddy Foster, Joanne Wheelock, Joyce Austin and Tammy Margan to the floor, and the lessons they took to learn the Hustle paid off. After a quick step-and-repeat photo, others quickly joined them upon arrival at Saratoga National Golf Club.

SARATOGA SPRINGS – Though students at Geyser Road Elementary are not currently allowed to walk or bike to school each morning, the city is taking its own steps to see that changed and make their route safer in the process.

The following weekend at the Spa is packed with four Grade II races: one today, one on Saturday, and two for juveniles Sunday.

NBC travels to the Spa this weekend for live coverage of three Grade IIs. For Friday, August 10, turf reigns with the running of the Grade II $200,000 National Racing Museum and Hall of Fame for 3-year-olds and up at 9.5 furlongs.

SARATOGA SPRINGS — The National Museum of Racing will induct its 2012 Hall of Fame class Friday at 10:30 a.m. at the Fasig-Tipton sales pavilion. Jockeys John Velazquez and Anthony Hamilton, trainers Roger Attfield and Robert Wheeler, and racehorses Ghostzapper and Planet will be enshrined. Tom Durkin, the track announcer for the New York Racing Association, will serve as the event’s master of ceremonies.

The cool white tent on the grounds of Saratoga Casino and Raceway was ablaze with community support on Wednesday, August 1, as hundreds attended Fire and Ice, the 30th Annual Benefit Auction for Saratoga Hospital. This is one of the most-anticipated events of the summer, drawing an eclectic crowd of all ages and professions with one common interest, the hospital. So shortly after 6 p.m., the festivities were in full swing!

SARATOGA SPRINGS – New York State’s nine racetrack casinos have generated more tax in 2012 than all casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City combined.

ALBANY – The defending Super Bowl XLVI champion New York Giants have returned to the Capital Region for their annual training camp at SUNY Albany. While the Giants certainly finished last season at the top of the NFL hierarchy, they won their division with only a 9-7 overall record and have the distinction of having the worst regular season winning percentage of any previous Super Bowl champion ever. Their division doesn’t appear to have gotten any easier this season, Philadelphia returns with a healthy Michael Vick and a Pro Bowl-caliber secondary; the Redskins (who defeated New York twice last season) have reshuffled their organization and drafted reigning-Heisman Trophy winner Robert Griffin III; Dallas remains an annual question mark but still has Tony Romo and Demarcus Ware on either side of the ball. Repeating simply as division champions won’t be an easy task for the G-men, let alone another Super Bowl appearance, but it won’t be impossible.

Although he never lived in it, the house at 203 Union Avenue is a testament to a man who lived both the American dream and, for a few months, the American nightmare of having his name in the newspaper daily.

SARATOGA SPRINGS – Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) became the latest venue to host the 2012 Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival on July 31, bringing some of the most popular, peculiar and legendary acts in heavy metal to the Spa City for a day filled with guitars, sunshine and caffeine. The lineup has rotated throughout the summer, but anchoring the entire tour are the legendary British rockers Motörhead, thrash metal icons Slayer and the traveling circus of masks and guitars known more fondly as Slipknot.