SARATOGA SPRINGS — The biggest day of summer in Saratoga is here.

The last five weeks have been leading up to this day.

And even if you’re not a horse racing fan, chances are good you’re going to mark the 139th running of the Travers Stakes presented by Shadwell Farm in at least a small way today, perhaps by getting dressed up and having a drink downtown, or tuning in on the TV to see who wins the $1 million Travers Stakes.

If you are one of the tens of thousands of people who will crowd into Saratoga Race Course today to watch the Midsummer Derby, the weather gods are expected to smile on you.

Temperatures are likely to be about 81 to 83 degrees at race time, said Joe Villani, meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Albany.

“We’re expecting mostly sunny skies and no chance of rain,” Villani said.

Although forecasters won’t know for another week how this summer’s rainy spell fared compared to normal, Villani said he expects the last three months to rank within the top 20 wettest summers on record.

Susan Lee Laing of Wilton will be watching the race on TV so she can paint the jockey in front of The Wishing Well restaurant in Wilton in the colors of the winning silks by the time the crowd arrives after the races. Her family owns the restaurant.

And she has an even bigger part in the race than that, although she no longer appears in the winner’s circle.

For the past 14 years, Laing has been making the carnation-covered blanket that is draped over the Travers winner.

About 25 of her friends, family members and acquaintances now have a hand in creating the blanket. Some just stop by to sew on a flower or two, while others labor for hours.

“It’s like painting Tom Sawyer’s fence,” Laing, 48, jokes.

She started the work at 3 p.m. Friday with just a few helpers. The really serious sewing usually starts about 9 p.m., and she expected to get the blanket done by about 11 p.m.

Tom Cashan is the chief of needle-threading.

“It’s fun — come up, have a few drinks and thread needles,” he said. The Rexford man has been helping with the blanket for four years.

He threaded a set of about 30 needles with red thread and put them in a red pillow for safekeeping as people who sewed flowers reached over to trade their empty needle for a threaded one.

“I’ll probably go through the whole set maybe 50 times,” Cashan said. “They just keep bringing them back, and I keep threading them.”

Making the blanket gives him a sense of being part of history, he said.

Kim Brock’s not a horse racing fan, but she is a huge fan of Saratoga.

“There’s no better place on earth than Saratoga Springs, in my opinion,” the Wilton woman said.

She worked at threading needles with Cashan on Friday night.

“I can’t sew to save my life,” she admitted.

Some of Brock’s friends have asked about the blanket-making and want to come along next year. “It’s fascinating to people to feel like they’re a part of the big race,” she said

Laing came up with the idea of making a carnation blanket because she had a flower shop next to The Wishing Well and thought the Travers should have a flower blanket, just like other big stakes races do.

“I said, ‘Why don’t we have one for the oldest stakes race in the country?’ ” So she called the New York Racing Association, and officials there liked the idea.

Now, NYRA pays for the supplies and Laing puts in the labor.

Each red or white carnation is first hot-glued to the felt backing and then sewed on with a curved needle.

“I think it’s the only one that’s really hand-sewn,” she said.

If you go:

* The gates open at 7 a.m. today at Saratoga Race Course for Travers Day. Post time for the first race is noon.

* Grandstand admission is $5, and clubhouse admission is $10. The $10 charge also applies to breakfast at the track today.