SARATOGA SPRINGS — Wednesday was a day for the ladies at Saratoga Race Course.

Female fans were in the spotlight for the third annual Women’s Day, which featured an expo with health and beauty information, a charity breakfast, a fashion workshop by Allison Meyers of Seamless Clothing Consulting and a silent auction.

Jessie Diemand of Northampton, Mass., got a quick blow dry and a spritz of hair spray at the expo before taking in the races.

“My bangs came out terrible this morning, and now they look good,” Diemand said.

She and a group of friends travel to Saratoga once a year, and for the last three years, their chosen date has fatefully landed on Women’s Day.

“They love this. This spoils them,” said Jill Johnson, project manager for Rumors Salon & Spa and Rumors IV Men in Latham, which blow-dried the hair of about 20 women for free before noon and more in the afternoon.”We had a big rush this morning,” said Lorrie Shilling, marketing director at the Wesley Community in Saratoga Springs. She was there answering questions about the nursing facility’s services.

Women make up almost half the fan base for horse racing, but are less numerous in track and racing industry employment.

Leah Gyarmati is one of only two female trainers at the track — the other is Linda Rice — but said her gender hasn’t affected the way people treat her.

“It’s just tough for everybody, and there probably aren’t as many women that try,” Gyarmati, 43, said after a morning of working. “I see a lot of men struggling more than I’m struggling.”

Women going into the horse racing business, either as riders or trainers, should be aware of the hardship involved, she said.

Working with racehorses is a 12-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week job for Gyarmati.

“This is a very tough way to make a living,” she said. “It’s very expensive to keep horses; it’s expensive to get good help. It’s difficult to charge enough to cover those costs.”

The Queens native grew up riding horses on the horse show circuit, and got a summer job working for Allen Jerkens at age 17.

She enrolled as a freshman at New York University but skipped classes to stay at Belmont. “After about a year, I just started working full time.”

After a stint as an exercise rider and Jerkens’ assistant, Gyarmati took a break to obtain her undergraduate and master’s degrees in theology. After a year and a half that followed working as a jockey, a group of women talked Gyarmati into training a horse for them in 1998.

It was supposed to be just for the summer, but the horse did well, winning a stakes race during its second start.

“The racetrack sort of sucks you in. It doesn’t matter what your other plans are,” Gyarmati said.

“I like to try to figure out a horse. I like a project horse, maybe a horse that someone hasn’t done very well with.”

Now she trains 20 horses, 15 of which are at Saratoga this summer. Gyarmati employs about a dozen workers.

She works for eight different owners, and most of the horses are New York-breds.