Vendors at the race course delight in the opportunities Belmont provides

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. — The Belmont Racing Festival is in full swing, and it’s not just the visitors at the Saratoga Race Course who are excited. From food to boutiques, the festival is an opportunity for all vendors to interact with racing fans and sell their goods a little earlier than the normal racing season.

Bumble B Boutique has been in business for 16 years, once having a store in Latham but now doing pop-ups selling clothing, jewelry, and accessories for women. Karen Macielak shared that she tries to gear her merchandise for the people that are going to be where she is selling. While she’s selling at the track, she gears her stall for the “Saratoga Woman.”

“I’ve brought hats and purses, fun candles and jewelry, all for the Saratoga woman,” Macielak said. “My Saratoga sweaters are my favorite item, they are great to wear.”

This is Macielak’s third year operating her stall at the race course, and while the first day of the racing festival felt similar to the traffic she’d get during the normal racing season, she thinks as the festival goes on, it will continue to ramp up.

“I love this venue obviously, and you can feel it in the air, all the excitement, and I think it’s going to be a great day,” Macielak said.  “I love meeting people and interacting, and I think it is going to be very profitable.”

At the Hatsational stall, Roger Locks, husband of Joyce Locks, who owns the business, explained that they’ve been at the race course for 12 years and have grown a bit of a following – with people coming back each year to buy a hat.

“We already have sales on the register, we weren’t even open and they were standing by the door,” Locks shared before the gates opened. “We have a very high-end product and we are here to dress you up and make you look good and finish off your outfit. Our motto is to select, not to settle, and that’s why we carry the inventory that we do.”

The stall sells hats for men and women as well as fascinators from anywhere between $25 to $160, each custom-made and one-of-a-kind. Locks truly delights in getting to help style and sell hats, explaining that he gets true joy in helping people who might not think they are hat people walk away with a perfectly styled new track hat. Belmont adds another layer of excitement.

“I’m confident that we are going to have a nice Belmont,” Locks said. “The action, the excitement of the people when they put their hats on, the action of all the stuff going on – people and all my friends will ask me what I’m doing for the summer and I tell them I am at the place to be. I’m going to be at Saratoga Race Track.”

“This is the place to be. Period. It’s good in June, but even better in August.”

While it’s the first time the Belmont Racing Festival has been held at the Saratoga Race Course, it is also the first time Yum Yumz, an Italian Ice Cart from Glens Falls,  has had a booth as well. Having been in business for seven years, Nicole Prevost shared that Yum Yumz is normally stationed at Peerless Pool over the summer, and was excited to be invited to the race course for the festival.

“It feels good, I feel like it’s going to be a good day today and that the weekend is going to be even more crazy,” Prevost shared on Friday. “I’m excited to talk to everybody and meet people from all over.”

Prevost shared that it was the ambiance that made her want to come out to the track, and the fact that this was something new that she had never tried before that could be a stepping stone to something new.

“We’re not here in the summertime, so you never know what this could open for us,” Prevost shared. “This is our gambling and it’s worth it. Instead of betting on horses, we’re betting on this, so it’s all good.”

One vendor that knows how worth it to be at the track is Meatball Planet, with this summer marking their fourth year at the Saratoga Race Course and their second year with their food truck.

The local family-owned food truck specializes in meatball creations based on cities around the world, including Milan, marinara, basil and parmesan cheese, Tokyo, teriyaki glaze, toasted sesame and green onion, Adirondacks, sweet and sour maple gaze and crispy bacon crumble, and more. The creations are a unique staple to the Saratoga Racing summer season.

“It’s been great, we love being at Saratoga and we are just so happy to be here and are really excited for Saturday,” Davin Britton with Meatball Planet said. “We’re going to blow the doors off this place.”

Britton shared there are similarities and differences to operating their stall during this racing festival as opposed to the typical meet season, one being that there are more food trucks, providing a wide variety of things for track goers to try, while there is also a lot of familiar faces.

“My favorite thing about being a part of Saratoga Race Track is that everybody is from somewhere and everybody has a story and I get to meet those interesting people all day long,” Britton said. “Everyone’s happy to share what they are doing because everyone is having a great time. This is everyone’s day off when they are here and they’re having a great time.”

“It’s sort of hard to have a bad day here at Saratoga.”