KEEPING THE SILKS CLEAN IT'S A DIRTY JOB, BUT NO ONE DOES IT BETTER THAN 'BIG LOUIE'.(Living Today)

Byline: Paul Grondahl Staff writer

If you want to know the down-and-dirty details about the Saratoga Race Course, there's only one man to see.

For 23 years, Louie Olah has observed firsthand the blood, sweat and tears of Saratoga's winning and losing jockeys. Olah's the guy who makes the New York Racing Association (NYRA) run clean and colorful meet after meet.

In the sport of kings, Olah's is not the most inviting dukedom. His wash-and-wear space is cramped, steamy and noisy. Splish-splash, splish-splash...ca-chunk, ca- chunk, ca-chunk are the sounds of his workaday world.

Despite the sweatshop atmosphere and 10-hour days, Olah has managed to rule his domain with the kind of princely finesse that has made him a minor legend in Saratoga racing annals. He is NYRA's longest-running manager of jockey racing silks.

"He's the best color man in the United States," says Chuck McClendon, Olah's assistant, who has been learning at the side of the master for the past five years. "He's got an incredible memory. That's what makes him so good."

"He's been around so long, he knows where George Washington hung his silks," says Tony Pellegrino, NYRA's assistant clerk of scales, who's spent 22 years himself weighing jockeys.

"Yeah, and George didn't leave no can there," Olah shoots back in the dulcet tones of his Staten Island breeding.

As "color man," Olah presides over a dizzying array of brightly-colored jockey silks, row after row, three high, hung on …