00:02The ending of Aqueduct, I guess, if I had to boil it down to one word, it would be emotional.
00:07It's amazing. It's pretty amazing.
00:10Iconic.
00:10It's the Mecca.
00:12Bittersweet.
00:12The world's amazing journey.
00:19Today is crazy. We arrived at about 11 o'clock. There was literally a line around the building.
00:24The apron is full. The seats are full. Great to see on closing day.
00:28The fans turn out, and the enthusiasm lives up to it.
00:32There's a big crowd here today, and everyone's having a great time.
00:37For myself, it's pretty emotional. You turn the page on Aqueduct.
00:42There's just a lot of memories here. Looking through all my father's old pictures, a tremendous amount of great horses
00:48that came out of Aqueduct Racetrack.
00:50Ruffian, Damascus, Kelso. It's endless.
00:56Memories of my first win as a trainer with No Fear, I think, way back in 1989.
01:00Memories of my first grade one with By the Firm and Julie Cronin, the top flight handicap.
01:04You know, memories that I wasn't even here for. Watching the pictures up on the wall with my grandfather winning
01:08the 1959 win memorial with the famous horseman,
01:11Vanessa Mauler, even as a fan, watching Easy Goer win the Gotham in 132 and change, or when Lucas swept
01:17the Philly race, watching Cordero and Jorge Velasquez.
01:21Back in the late 80s, I ran in a race against my father, my grandfather, and myself, and all my
01:26mom and my aunts who all came out and all the family, and they were all rooting for my horse.
01:31And my grandfather and my father got so insulted that I told them to root for theirs.
01:34Neither of us, none of us wanted the race, but my instructions to the jockey was, I don't care where
01:38you finish as long as it's the head of those other two guys.
01:41The first stakes race every year was the toboggan handicap, and I remember seeing due diligence win the toboggan handicap
01:48for Harborview Farms and Jorge Velasquez,
01:51and that was the same day I told my father I was going to be a jockey and I was
01:54going to win the toboggan handicap.
01:56I've been coming here since as long as I can remember. Really did grow up at this track and probably
02:02spend more time at this track than almost any other.
02:06Winning the Seaguard mile with State Thursday was a close finish and definitely was a highlight. At the same time,
02:13my last ride ever was here at Aqueduct.
02:17I think I came here with my father when I was a young girl. I was about nine years old.
02:22My father shipped horses in and I would go everywhere he went.
02:25So I built my career right here in New York at Aqueduct.
02:27I had been coming to the racetrack here at Aqueduct for years since I was nine, ten years old, and
02:34as a kid I could tell you every winner of the Wood Memorial, jockey, trainer, owner, horse,
02:39winning the Wood Memorial in 1985 was extremely emotional and it honestly affected me deeply because I was a kid
02:46that fell in love with this, and now I was a part of it. And to me that'll always stand
02:51out.
02:51So I've been sitting in the same seat since 1976. I haven't gone very far in life, eight feet. Childhood
02:56memories are going down when this building goes down for me.
03:00Belmont's great, Saratoga's great, but the meat and potatoes of Aqueduct, you know, is something special for everybody that was
03:05here back in the 70s and 80s.
03:06And even today, for so many years, the fans so diversified, you know, the ethnicities of different fans that you
03:13don't get any place in the world here in New York City.
03:15This was the track for the real ones, if you will. There was nobody here that, you know, was faking
03:21it. There was nobody here that, you know, didn't truly love what they did.
03:27It's always going to be a special track and, you know, even though we're moving over to the new Belmont,
03:31we're always going to be telling stories about Aqueduct.
