One day this winter, in between covering races at Laurel Park, I got a phone call from Georganne Hale. Could I come to the office of track president Sal Sinatra? It felt a little like getting summoned to the principal’s office, and my first reaction was to wonder if I’d written something Sinatra didn’t appreciate.
The horse just stood there with his head over the yoke screen in a five-stall barn on a Pennsylvania afternoon. Bay, old, plain, but regal, wise. Something said class, like he’d been places and done things.
Then his halter nameplate came into proper view.
How’s your summer going? If you’re reading this, you’ve probably experienced a little bit of every-thing – success, failure, status quo, good news, bad news, darkness, bright lights, confidence, doubt . . . The list of 2020 experiences for Thoroughbred racing could go in any direction imaginable – and unimaginable.
Go ahead and admit it. This feels different, right? This magazine, is it smaller? New? Old? Something changed, right? Well, yes and no. The magazine pages are the same size – 8.125 inches by 10.875 inches – there are just fewer of them.
But we don’t think you’ll mind.
Erich Zimny could barely contain himself. The thought of Charles Town Races, where he is the vice president of racing and sports operations, being the only pari-mutuel wagering option in the United States on Thursday, May 14 provoked pure glee, giddiness even.
This time of year, tents are always part of the landscape at Pimlico Race Course and signal the coming of Preakness Day with its thousands of spectators, world-class horses, celebrities, big racing names, millions in wagering handle and massive economic impact.
Last summer I began a column in this space with a line from John Steinbeck’s novel Travels with Charley. It went like this: “. . . the end is not in question. It’s the means – the dreadful uncertainty of the means.”
Welcome to uncertainty, Thoroughbred racing. Dreadful uncertainty.
Betty Moran was an automatic. In the early days of Steeplechase Times, my first real foray into writing about Thoroughbred racing, I’d ask Mrs. Moran (she was always Mrs. Moran to me, even if she probably would have been OK with Betty) to buy an advertisement for the Radnor Hunt Races. She’d say yes to a full page, we’d run it on the back cover and send her a bill.
