NUMBERS ARE IN SPA'S FAVOR.(Sports)

Byline: Matt Graves

Saratoga '91 is heading into the stretch, and the first venture into five weeks is still going surprisingly strong.

"It's an overwhelming success," said New York Racing Association executive vice president Gerald Lawrence. "It's just been great."

The numbers for the first three weeks have been superb, and with Travers week coming up, there is every reason to believe this will be an experiment that has passed the acid test.

Average daily attendance at the track has been 22,121, compared with 21,421 over the same three weeks of 1990.

Of course, one of those weeks in '90 was the last week at Belmont, but countering that effect was the fact that a T-shirt giveaway at Saratoga in 1990 drew a questionable 51,769 the first Sunday of the meet. There has been no T-shirt promotion this …