Every morning, Ed Fazzone starts his day on the backstretch of the Saratoga Race Course to check in on his horses.

“Easy, easy, good boy. This is Buttah,” said Fazzone, referring to a 4-year-old colt who recently won a $120,000 allowance race with 29-1 odds in one of the undercards of the Belmont Stakes.

Buttah comes from a lineage of horses all named after food. At a nearby stable, you’ll find his sibling.

“This is Tartah — 2-year-old,” Fazzone said. “This is part of the family. Half-brother to Buttah, Lobsta, and Chowda.”

Fazzone is the owner of Eddie F’s Racing. It’s a partnership he founded in 2018, and the group has won five stakes races over the years. It currently has 21 partners.

“It’s another business. It’s a fun business, highs and lows, just like any other business,” Fazzone said.

It’s something the Schenectady native has always wanted to do. The Spa is a place Fazzone has been coming to since he was two.

“We used to run around the trees and get the autographs and the goggles,” he said, “just like the kids are doing now.”

If you’re wondering why some of his horses are named after things you’d find on a restaurant menu, Fazzone is in that business as well.

“I’ve been in the restaurant business, family has been in the restaurant business, for a long time,” Fazzone said.

After spending the morning at the barns, Fazzone makes his way to his nearby seafood restaurants — Eddie F’s New England Seafood Restaurant in Saratoga Springs and Eddie and Mario’s New England Seafood & Pizzeria in Clifton Park.

He’s had the Saratoga location for nearly 10 years, while the Clifton Park location opened in 2023 before merging with a local pizzeria in December. That’s in addition to a stand Fazzone has at the Saratoga Race Course during the summer meet.

“It’s challenging. But … again, it’s what I do. It’s fun,” he said.

Owning three restaurants and 15 New York-bred horses keeps him busy. The days are long, but Fazzone said he wouldn’t want to serve it up any other way.

“Big upset. This is what it’s all about,” Fazzone said. “The excitement in this game when your horse wins, there’s nothing like it.”