Each summer, before Saratoga gets rolling in August, the advance teams arrive and get to work. Here’s what it was like for Joe Clancy. Lucky there was a horse around to help.

OK, breathe.

As usual, I spent the first two days of the meet hassling through any number of issues including—but by no means limited to—computer networks, the Internet, advertisements, articles, photography, housing, office space, bicycles, paper racks, paper boxes, a new printer.

Then came distributiongate and what now seem like days (but merely hours I guess) of telephone calls and discussions and wonder and angst. In the end, it all worked out. The computers communicated with everything. The ads showed up. We finished the first paper, we weathered a storm.