Reporting on Racing, With Love Beyond Words
SARATOGA
SPRINGS, N.Y. — It was a lousy morning to be on the backside, but the
Clancy brothers were there Tuesday, braving the steady rain and up to
their boots in mud as they distributed their daily newspaper and
gathered the next day’s news. There’s no use publishing The Saratoga Special
if you can’t get it in the hands of your loyal readers. And for 14
years, Joe and Sean Clancy have been its paperboys as well as its
owners.
For
that matter, it was a lousy day to be in the paper’s office a couple of
furlongs away on Spring Street. It had flooded overnight, and
industrial fans were on overdrive in an effort to dry out the carpets.
The Clancys have never really had creature comforts in their work space —
after all, The Saratoga Special’s first home was a fitness center and
had mirrored walls, a shower, and a chin-up bar for a coat rack.
To
say The Special, as it is known here, is a family business is accurate
enough. Joe Clancy’s three sons — Ryan, 21; Jack, 18; and Nolan, 13 —
have put in their time on the distribution and have earned photo
credits. Sean’s boy, Miles, 5, is a year or two away from punching the
clock, but there is a position awaiting him.
Beyond
that, The Saratoga Special is also a love affair — a newspaper for
racetrackers that is reported, published and delivered by racetrackers.
It’s a must-read for anyone besotted with racehorses and the human
characters who surround them.
“We’re
a community newspaper for people who are connected to the horse,” Joe
Clancy said. “We grew up with our hands on them, and to be able to write
about those people and tell their stories is how we fit in.”
What
the Clancys have created with the help of a veteran editor and a crew
of beginning journalists is a free, tabloid-format publication that runs
from 44 to 60 pages and is published every Wednesday through Sunday
during the Saratoga summer meet. It has a daily circulation of about
5,000, is chock-full of ads and is loaded with racetrack flavor.
All
of it is a labor of love born from a father’s affection for his two
sons. Joe Clancy Sr. trained steeplechase horses and regular
thoroughbreds and let his boys tag along when he came up here to race.
Soon enough, they got their hands on The Pink Sheet, the horse racing
insert of the local newspaper, The Saratogian, and became absorbed in
all the racetrack banter. They were hooked.
Joe
quickly became a talented horseman and his father’s top assistant, and
Sean just as quickly learned to be a steeplechase jockey. But Joe Sr.
insisted they go to college and find a life away from the track.
“It only halfway worked,” the younger Joe, 49, said.
Joe
graduated from the University of Delaware and began a slow climb up the
journalism ladder — working at a weekly in Delaware before landing at
one of the oldest and best-named daily newspapers in the country, The Cecil Whig, which was founded as a weekly in 1841 and covers Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
He
became its sports editor and sometime police reporter, as Sean Clancy
continued to pursue a career in steeplechase. In 1994, the brothers
combined their passions and founded The Steeplechase Times, which became
the foundation of a racing-based media company that now includes ThisIsHorseRacing.com, a calendar business and the editing duties at Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred, a monthly magazine.
In
2000, the Clancys started The Special because they thought that what
was widely considered the best horse racing meet in the country was
being woefully undercovered. In 1998 at Saratoga, Sean won the New York
Turf Writer’s Cup, one of the most prestigious steeplechase races of the
year, aboard a horse named Hokan. It was the biggest win of Sean’s
career, and he had an interesting history with the horse. But no one
asked him about it.
“I
had galloped the horse two years earlier, and he was a complete rogue,”
Sean, 44, said. “I’m a pretty good talker, and I would have told anyone
that asked about how crazy he was. But no one did.”
“I’d
go to the newspaper stand,” he added, “and look at four or five papers,
and I was just amazed how everyone was covering these big races with
300-word recaps. We had access and history with all these horsemen and
thought, Let’s write for them and deep-down horse racing fans.”
In
addition to publishing handicapper’s picks, long features about coming
Saratoga events and vivid coverage of the races, The Special blends a
pitch-perfect ear for the rhythms of the backside and the Clancys’
fondness for all things connected to the track.
Their half-full philosophy is a staple of the paper’s “Worth Repeating” section:
“I think I’ll get arrested so I can spend some time away from here” — Morning Line kitchen’s Dennis Zoitos.
“Billy,
when’s your birthday, I need to cash a ticket” — Trainer Pat Reynolds
to Bill Mott, who consistently wins a race on his birthday. (Pat, you’ll
have to wait until next year.)
“Receipt?
I need a second job” — Owner Alan Brodsky, when asked if he needed a
receipt after treating Mark Hennig’s barn to dinner at Prime.
The
paper has also provided summer jobs to the children of horsemen and has
proved to be a training ground for people like the Monmouth Park
announcer Travis Stone and the broadcast analyst Gabby Gaudet.
Early
in The Special’s lifetime, the Clancys felt as if they were running an
underground paper for literate horsemen. Now, a majority of the copies
are distributed to fans in town.
“It’s cool to see someone walking down Broadway with one stuck in their pocket,” Joe Clancy said.
Technology
has made getting the paper to the printer easier — there’s no more
driving a disk 25 minutes twice a night, for an early and a late
edition. The days remain longer than the profit margins, but neither
Clancy brother is complaining.
“You
don’t want to know our hourly wage,” Joe said. “But I can tell you I
look forward to this time of year more than any other. It works — you
can put your life on hold and be around something you love.”
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