By Emma Ralls
Courtesy The Saratogian
SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY — It’s hard to believe that after three whirlwind years, the Belmont Stakes time has officially drawn to a close in the Spa City. As the dust settled, The Saratogian checked in with several local leaders to reflect on the event and its impact.
Spa City’s Mayor John Safford was quick to emphasize how amazing these past three years were, with the biggest highlight in his mind being the partnership between the city and NYRA, and how that has been strengthened by the events at the Saratoga Race Course.
“One of the things that was really wonderful about this is NYRA working with our downtown to make it a joint success, that’s where Belmont on Broadway came from,” Safford noted. “The ongoing relationship with NYRA and downtown is important, as they’re expanding their services where a lot of people will now stay for dinner out there (at the track), but at the same time, they’ll kind of work with us to get traffic back downtown. That cooperation, Belmont kind of brought that back — for a while it was not as good as it could have been, but now that cooperation is a little better, and so I’m excited about that leading into the future.”
Another big advantage Safford pointed to was the exposure the city received from Fox Sports, which presented comprehensive Belmont Stakes Racing Festival programming that spanned more than 35 hours across the five-day festival, with him adding that outside of this, there was no way the city could afford “that kind of coverage.”
“I can’t say enough about the coverage that we got, because Saratoga isn’t just racing,” Safford explained. “Saratoga has pretty much the full gambit of what a small city should have — we have manufacturing here, we have education here, we have cultural arts here, and I do think that that got a lot of recognition. And again, it’s already known internationally, but with even more exposure in terms of the cultural depth of our city … I can’t imagine anybody coming here and not finding something that they’re interested in, because we have it all here.”
“Obviously, we look unique, because we are unique – we clearly are a Victorian architect and wonderful city from that perspective – but it’s also the people. New people come in, and sometimes they have different ideas and things of that nature, but there is a melting pot in Saratoga that is very much focused on some very good things, very good ideas, very good culture, and people can feel that.”
He also noted the unique impact of the event, drawing the attention/interest of many national law enforcement agencies, who shared their expertise with the Saratoga Springs Law Enforcement on a variety of tactics and safety issues.
“The training that we went through to host this kind of international event was wonderful. And, the fact that there were 17 different agencies — when you do that and you have those trainings, that affects the whole future of the city,” Safford shared. “Our police force, our fire police were exposed to training that they never would have had otherwise. So it just lifts the capability of our law enforcement, including the Sheriff’s department, including all of the agencies from the county, as well as the state, which is wonderful from that standpoint.”
“We had many, many agencies within our city, and to bring that level of safety, and the professionalism that was shown there, was just outstanding.”
Public Safety Commissioner Tim Coll shared similar sentiments, explaining that throughout the three years, there were usually between 15 and 20 different agencies present — ranging from the FAA, which was assisting with the temporary flight restriction, to the FBI, NYS Police, Saratoga County Sheriff, NYRA Security, Park Police, State homeland security and more.
“Obviously, the Belmont festival for the last three years has been a tremendous success, and the last one was very, very consistent with the first two. I can’t thank our partners at the federal, state, and local levels enough,” Coll said. “I think it’s important to remember that when we do a very large scale special event like this, and it’s obviously not just the Belmont on Broadway, not just the Belmont Stakes, but certainly our bars and restaurants on the weekends as well, so we have assistance from these agencies which gives us additional resources, and they were also used in our nightlife areas as well. So many thanks to them and the tremendous relationships all year round, and we couldn’t do it without those partnerships.”
Another group of people whom Coll wanted to recognize were the City Hall employees who worked hard behind the scenes to help ensure the event could be as great as possible, doing things like processing the special event applications, the city’s risk and safety officer who did the analysis to see if we have any insurance exposure, as well as positions like code enforcement that make sure temporary structures are safe.
He also notes that one thing he hopes to see continue well after the Belmont Stakes is to see these important relationships continue to be fostered and built upon.
“I would tell anyone in the future, whoever takes over my role here, that you need to maintain great cooperation and collaboration with our law enforcement partners. You can’t do this alone; you need to multiply your resources,” Coll stated. “We’ve had probably close to 100 other officers, investigators, agents from other departments here, and if you don’t have those close working relationships, the expertise and skill from all those different agencies, you will be in trouble moving forward. That is the takeaway — please maintain the collaboration and work with these other agencies.”
Ensuring safety at such a large scale event comes down to preparation planning and communication, according to Coll, who also recognized Police Chief Tyler McIntosh and the command staff at SSPD for the work they did as well as SSPD officer – noting these individuals have been doing special events in the city for a long time, this past event just happened to be on a “little more complex, little larger scale.” He also noted that in the past, there have been a variety of training exercises, such as tabletop and full-scale exercises, along with weekly meetings with partners during the two months prior to the event, which helped all those involved prepare
“The goal of (law enforcement for) these special events is obviously to prevent a large-scale terrorist attack, that’s the number one goal, and to do that you have to have overwhelming presence and overwhelming planning and you have to use technology,” Coll explained. “If we get threat information of bad actors coming into our city, we need to address that. So I do think that a lot of it is proactive policing in this regard. As far as arrests, we’ve had two very minor arrests at the Belmont on Broadway and we had no arrests at the Belmont Stakes itself…and with the city swelled to 100,000 (people), that’s pretty amazing. The crowds were very well behaved.”
“It’s important that we continue to work with our federal partners to make sure, as far as our counter technology, we are cutting edge.”
Todd Shimkus, president of the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce, noted that there was plenty for people to enjoy throughout the Belmont’s time in Saratoga, from the racing itself to the parties, historic and farm tours, as well as the Belmont on Broadway concert, which he, along with several other local leaders in the area, collaborated on to kick off all the fun each year. According to Shimkus, it was really designed as both a kickoff concert that draws visitors, but also intended as a thank you for residents for putting up with the traffic and with the noise of such a large-scale event, so there could be that sort of economic boost for the community throughout the region.
“I think people are going to be talking about this for the rest of their lives – saying, ‘Hey, do you remember when we were drinking alcohol on Broadway and dancing to Fitz and the Tantrums,’ and just having a fun time,” Shimkus remarked. “And, the uniqueness of it, it only happened three times — there’s a sort of pride, knowing that people are going to be talking about something that we all put together for the rest of their lives.”
“We had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to host this incredible event, and I think we did everything we possibly could as a community to make it the best it was.”
And it wasn’t just the city that benefited from the Belmont temporarily running in Saratoga, but also the surrounding communities, which felt the impact of such a large-scale event. Shimkus shared that. Based on a previous economic impact study, which found that the Saratoga Race Track has about an average $9 million economic impact each day, he’d predict the racing festival generated an economic impact across the region of about $45 million.
“What we said all along is that Saratoga Springs doesn’t have enough hotel rooms in the city alone to house everybody that wanted to be here, and so we know people stayed as far away as Lake George and Albany — and where people stay is where they spend money,” Shimkus explained. “Clearly, this had an exponential impact across the entire region, and just the international exposure we got in my mind is going to have long-term benefits with people thinking about visiting Saratoga in the future.”
He added that while he knows many businesses are going to miss having the Belmont and Belmont of Broadway next summer, he doesn’t know if there is any way to truly replace that boom. His hope, though, is that with all the great events being planned in honor of the 250th anniversary of the Battles in Saratoga, there will still be a bit of an uptick.
“The motto for the city is ‘health, history and horses,’ so maybe next year the focus is on the history,” Shimkus said. “Maybe we get more people to come here to celebrate our independence and the role that was played right here in Saratoga.”
And while he also agreed it might be tricky to put on another Belmont on Broadway, regarding the city’s participation in large national, or in some cases international events, Safford did note it is definitely something Saratoga Springs proved it can do. He shared that the city has some interest in potentially having some participation in the Olympics if they come back, noting that there have been some discussions with its proximity to Lake Placid.
“People were very nervous the first year on whether or not they thought our city could handle this, and we not only handled it, but we handled it very, very well from day one,” Safford said. “Obviously, over the last two years after that, we’ve learned and made it even better and better, and the relationship with NYRA continues to grow. It’s just a great learning experience of having something like this, and the exposure will make a huge difference with the city going forward.”
