Saratoga Race Course's six-week racing season in upstate New York not only generates a sizable chunk of Saratoga Springs's economic activity each year, but it also defines the city of 26,000. "I think it's a central piece of what we are in Saratoga Springs," Mayor Ken Klotz said. "The racing season is critical to Saratoga, and I couldn't imagine being without it."

The mere thought of no Saratoga meet would send shudders up the spine of every member of the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce, which estimates the racing season generates approximately one-half of the area's summer visitors and half of its summer tourist business, contributing tens of millions of dollars to local coffers.

Hotels are packed, and those in prime locations attract reservations many months in advance of the meet. Restaurants quickly fill to capacity, and waits for a table often run to more than an hour.

And that is only part of the equation; the meet has a trickle-down effect that seeps literally into many Saratoga Springs homes. The annual, 200-mile shift of racing from Belmont Park on Long Island to Saratoga triggers a mass migration of trainers, jockeys, exercise riders, stable workers, approximately 500 New York Racing Association (NYRA) employees, and media members.

Most of them require temporary housing for at least part of the six-week meet, and many stay for the whole season. The Fasig-Tipton Co. yearling sale brings in a whole new crowd for several days each August. So do the Racing Hall of Fame induction ceremonies.

Another 1,500 residents in Saratoga Springs and throughout the Capital District area in upstate New York take temporary jobs with NYRA every summer in a myriad of capacities ranging from waitresses to ushers to tellers to security guards.

Saratoga Race Course's success, which is indisputable, sends ripples through many people's wallets in the sylvan, scenic community. But it was not always so.

Two-decade explosion

"We remember when we weren't getting tourists to come to Saratoga," said Rod Sutton, a 51-year-old native Saratogian who owns the Sutton and Tarantino Insurance Agency and is the immediate past chairman of the Chamber of Commerce. "Certainly, the economic impact is quite obvious with the popularity Saratoga has received the past 20 years. We see it selling insurance to the business community in Saratoga. We see new businesses spring up every year trying to take advantage of the popularity of Saratoga."

Sutton has an intimate knowledge of the racing season's impact. He was nine years old when he began parking cars in the back lot of his family's property on Union Avenue.

"Back in the early '50s, my father purchased a piece of property right across the street from the main entrance," he said. "That was long before the Northway (Interstate 87) was built. Route 9 was the main thoroughfare. Those were days when they'd get 22,000 people for the Travers (Stakes). Now they average 22,000 a day."

Back then, it cost 50 cents to park in the Sutton's lot. Now it's $5. "It's a little cottage industry that's been going on forever," Sutton said. "People rent their lawns out to buy groceries. No one gets rich off it."

Maybe not, but the people who rent out their houses certainly reap a tidy sum. "The house prices have gone up the last four or five years," NYRA President Terry Meyocks said. "I think it's sort of unfair, but they're getting the prices they ask for."

Meyocks said $8,000 for a six-week rental is no longer the upper limit. "I think it's more than that," he said. "The townhouses go for up to $10,000. Someday, somebody's going to say, 'That's enough.'

Saratoga Springs at a glance

• Population:26,000
• Location: 175 miles north of New York City
• Principal employers:Quad Graphics (more than 1,000 employees); Saratoga Hospital; Skidmore College; Stewart's Shops
• Main attractions: Saratoga Race Course; Saratoga Performing Arts Center; Saratoga Polo; Saratoga State Park; Congress Park; National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame; National Museum of Dance; Saratoga Equine Sports Center (harness racing); mineral baths and spas; Saratoga Harness Racing Hall of Fame
• Motels and hotels: 30
• Bed and breakfasts: 15
• Total rooms: 1,850
• Conventions or conferences per year: 350"

Captive audience

Bill Nader, NYRA's director of broadcast communications and promotions, echoed Meyocks's assessment: "I think people in Saratoga who rent homes think we're rich down here, that we're wealthy NYRA suits, and that we and owners and trainers will pay anything for a house. It's a shame because the people who work at NYRA have a limited per diem. For many of us, it's a working vacation. They have a captive audience. What's fair? Fair is what price you can get."

Nader said he spent $4,000 last summer for a three-bedroom house for six weeks, which was $1,000 less than he spent to rent a similar house in a less-desirable location when he, his wife Elaine, and their three children spent their first summer in Saratoga in 1995. "The farther away from the track, the better the price," Nader said. "For people who have a second home, it's ideal. On the other hand, I wouldn't want to give away my home for six weeks."

There are other options, and people of moderate means are following the example of wealthy people who for many years have traveled from Long Island or Pennsylvania or wherever for the racing season. They bought their living quarters.

"Glen Mathes (NYRA's director of communications), bought a house up there after leasing for years," Nader said. "You see more and more people do that. (Announcer) Tom Durkin bought a condo. Terry (Meyocks) got a place up there." Durkin rented a house with broadcaster Chris Lincoln his first year at Saratoga. "And I will never live with Chris Lincoln again as long as I live," Durkin laughed. "Then I rented another house for seven years. And the people were very nice. But basically, I just did the math. The reason I bought a house in Saratoga was I couldn't afford to rent one. For a very modest house, I paid like $5,000."

So Durkin purchased a townhouse five miles from the track three years ago. "When I work at that meeting, when I go home, I go home," he said. "There's a big difference in your mindset because you're going home instead of going to someone else's very expensive house that you're renting."

Most people, though, have their hands full with one house. They look to rent.

House matchmaking

Mara King is one of five agents who handle racing season rentals for Roohan Realty, which has been doing Saratoga house matchmaking since the agency opened in the late 1970s. "It seems to have grown in the last few years," King said. "There are a lot more people renting houses. There is new construction, and those houses are very popular."

Any homeowner who wants to change summer addresses for up to six weeks can request a package of information from Roohan Realty. "Then we list the house in our office," King said. "We keep a book of everything that's available. Tenants call us asking for specific numbers of bedrooms and baths, or location or the price."

King declined to divulge an average price for a Saratoga rental, but she said she fields calls from everywhere. "We have people from Texas and California, some people from Ireland."

She said the length of a rental contract is very flexible, ranging from one week to even longer than the six-week season. "Some people come earlier in July," King said.

Rod Sutton's cousin, Bill, a plumbing and heating contractor, and his wife, Betsy, a promotion director for the Saratoga Preservation Foundation, annually rent out their house for just two weeks through Fasig-Tipton. "We've been doing it for about 20 years," Betsy Sutton said. "We've been very pleased. So many