Work will start next Monday with modernizing the men's and women's restroom facilities on the backstretch and new concrete has already been poured into designated areas to help prevent standing water and avoid excess mud around the barns.

In June, Los Alamitos completed work on improvements to the receiving barn and testing areas prioritizing suggestions and recommendations from staff in those areas. The track also built a brand-new office at the main entrance of the barn area for more efficient traffic control.

Additional projects to the barn area for 2023-2024 will be announced in the months to come.

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Every Sunday just before 6 p.m., upbeat music and savory smells reach Union Avenue as a crowd gathers at the Marylou Whitney Pavilion. With dozens of volunteers on hand, the vast smorgasbord of food remains open until 8:30 so that workers who were busy in the later races on the day's card have plenty of time to join the party and sit down for a warm meal.

The team at the Adelphi has planned a different cuisine for each week and attendees are always eager to find out what will be on the menu.

“We work with all fresh food and ingredients and we cook everything to order,” said the Adelphi's Director of Restaurants Patrick Toomey. “We picked different theme nights–like Mexican, Carribean, and Southern–so we have a lot of fun with it. I love the community that you see back here. I love to hear the chatter and see their faces enjoying good food.”

The Adelphi Hotel is owned by the Roth family of LNJ Foxwoods Stable and their partner, fellow horse owner and philanthropist Michael Dubb. Toomey said that when the Roth family was first presented with the opportunity to support this event, they were eager to participate.

“The Roths have been big backstretch contributors before in other ways at different tracks and this was an easy one,” he said. “We were definitely going to give it our all and provide great dinners here every Sunday night.”

After the passing of his wife Marylou Whitney in 2019, John Hendrickson has remained active in supporting a multitude of backstretch initiatives. In addition to the organization of the Sunday evening dinners, as a tribute to his late wife he funded construction for the Saratoga Backstretch Clinic, which is also new this year and is located across from the pavilion.

“We've been doing [dinners] for 16 years as part of the Backstretch Appreciation Program that Marylou and I started,” Hendrickson said. “Marylou always said that this should be the summer place for everyone. They should have the best food and now they have the best health care as well.”

This summer, the Sunday evening dinners have been attracting crowds upwards of 500 backstretch workers.

“This year, there's new energy,” said Hendrickson. “Everybody dresses up and everybody is happy. It's first-class food. The Roth family is very generous and they've really put on a great show.”

Every evening with the exception of Saturday night when racing runs late, an event is on the schedule for the backstretch workers. In addition to the Sunday evening dinners, Wednesday night bingo also draws a crowd. These events are made possible through the work of the Race Track Chaplaincy and the Backstretch Employee Services Team (BEST) in New York.

BEST'S Program Director Nancy Underwood said that events like the Sunday dinner allow their team to check in on members of the backstretch community and invite new workers to join their community.

“We really try to create a sense of community and we're able to do that because of John and his donors,” said BEST's Program Director Nancy Underwood. “Everything we do with this population is really about trust and relationship building. We believe that a connected person is a healthier person. We bring everybody together. We're able to serve them, celebrate what they do and really appreciate what they do for the industry.”

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No child is turned away from the program, which meets critical needs for the families that the Chaplaincy serves. The program is solely supported by contributions from the public.

Those interested may click here to donate any amount, or click here to sponsor a child for one day, one week, one month, or the entire summer.

Humberto Chavez, Lead Chaplain and Executive Director of the NY Chaplaincy, said the program is very close to his heart.

“Thanks to the Saratoga Summer Enrichment Program, members of the backstretch community who are parents are able to keep their families together and know their children are well-cared-for while they are at work. The peace of mind this provides is something every parent can appreciate and support. We turn away no one and are very grateful to everyone who makes this program possible.”

Over 3,500 people make up the community of workers on the backstretches of the thoroughbred racing industry at Belmont Park, Aqueduct Racetrack, and Saratoga Race Course.  The New York Race Track Chaplaincy ministers to that community with children's enrichment, social service, and recreational programs, educational opportunities, and non-denominational religious services. The Chaplaincy provides these extensive services with the intent of satisfying not only spiritual needs but also basic human necessities, and its unique population is served without regard to race, creed, religion, background, or social status.

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“I love this sport and with each passing day, I have a deeper appreciation for the commitment and dedication of backstretch workers,” Serling said. “The New York Race Track Chaplaincy does incredible work for our community and I'm humbled to be honored in this way.”

The NY Chaplaincy serves New York's backstretch community with children's enrichment, social service, recreational, and educational programming, as well as with non-denominational religious services.

“At every opportunity, Andy goes out of his way to recognize and advocate for the members of the backstretch community and he richly deserves this honor,” said Humberto Chavez, the lead chaplain and executive director of the NY Chaplaincy.

Previous honorees have included Anne Campbell, Edgar Prado, Michael Dubb, Fay and David Donk, Marylou Whitney and John Hendrickson, Letty and Kiaran McLaughlin, Lisa and Kenny Troutt, Debbie and Terry Finley, the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association, and Irad Ortiz, Jr. The honoree is presented with a print by equine artist Tom Chapman at the brunch. For more information, visit rtcany.org.

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Based in Elmont, NY, the NY Race Track Chaplaincy ministers to stable workers and their families at Belmont Park, Aqueduct Racetrack, and Saratoga Race Course. The group provides children's enrichment activities, social services, recreational activities, and educational programs, as well as nondenominational religious services. NY Race Track Chaplaincy serves approximately 3,500 individuals and their families statewide.

The agreement with SUNY Empire provides eligible participants with a $50 orientation-fee waiver and a one-time $100 Better Together Scholarship. In addition, the partnership opens opportunities for NY Race Track Chaplaincy and SUNY Empire to identify areas of training received as a member or employee of NY Race Track Chaplaincy that can be evaluated for college-level credit.

Nathan Gonyea, officer in charge at SUNY Empire State College, said: “SUNY Empire serves students across New York state with a mission to expand access to affordable, high-quality educational opportunities that empower people and strengthen communities. When NY Race Track Chaplaincy approached us to explore partnership opportunities, we saw that their efforts align with our mission. It's a win-win. Their members and employees will benefit from the education they earn through this partnership, and New York state will benefit from a stronger workforce as a result.”

Tina Evans '97, SUNY Empire Foundation Board member, said: “SUNY Empire's model — flexible, online learning built around students' lives — is a perfect fit for the NY Race Track Chaplaincy and the people they serve, including the backstretch community, jockeys, and trainers. As a SUNY Empire alumna and SUNY Empire State College Foundation Board member, I knew this would be an ideal partnership.”

Ramón Dominguez, president of the board of the NY Race Track Chaplaincy and Hall of Fame jockey said: “We are grateful for this opportunity. The flexibility and affordability of the programs offered by SUNY Empire are a great fit for the members of the backstretch community.”

Kylie Byrne, director of corporate and community partnerships at SUNY Empire, said: “Our new partnership with NY Race Track Chaplaincy demonstrates the importance of collaborating with our partners to ease access to education for important student populations. Both of our organizations have a strong commitment to strengthen our communities by empowering the people within those communities, and we're excited to continue this work together.”

For more information, or to inquire about community college or corporate partnership opportunities with SUNY Empire State College, visit the college's partnership programs page. For more information about the NY Race Track Chaplaincy partnership program, email info@rtcany.org.

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But that doesn't begin to match the feeling that Dubb, a thoroughbred owner and Long Island developer, derives from his real calling at the track: putting together daycare centers that benefit the children of backstretch workers.

“There isn't anything I'd trade in racing for the smiles and success that our daycare center at Belmont Park has had with children who have passed through its doors with a firm foundation under them,” said Dubb, who serves as a New York Racing Association, Inc. (NYRA) board member and is the founder and chairman of the Belmont Child Care Association (BCCA). “That's why we're so proud of what we're doing in Saratoga, which will continue to improve the lives of backstretch families.”

Dubb refers to the scheduled opening this summer of BCCA's new childcare center for the backstretch community at Saratoga Race Course. The 4,300-square-foot facility going up inside Gate 16, a furlong or two from the Oklahoma training track, is being funded by Dubb and his wife, Lee. It will be called Faith's House in honor of Mr. Dubb's late mother, Faith; and completes the circle of having child care during the summer meet at Saratoga and year-round at Anna House.

The Saratoga facility will provide child care and early education programs for infants, toddlers and preschool-aged children of backstretch workers, and the children of trainers and front-side NYRA employees. Faith's House will complement BCCA's sister childcare center Anna House, which Dubb built and opened in 2003 for families of the Belmont Park backstretch.

“All working parents deserve to know that their children are being cared for in a safe, healthy and enriching environment during the workday,” said Dubb. “We are thrilled to extend this important program to the hardworking families of the Saratoga backstretch community, who provide a vital service to the racing community.”

The anticipated summer opening coincides with the annual summer meet at Saratoga Race Course, which brings approximately 950 backstretch workers and their families to the Spa. The opening of the new center is contingent upon licensing approval from New York State and the New York State Office of Children and Family Services.

Dubb's passion for the track kicked in early. In 1973 at the age of 17, he was a self-described “misfit,” a recent high school graduate who spent much of that summer shuttling back and forth to Saratoga Race Course in the van he used for his landscaping business. At night, he and his friends slept on the floor of the van to save a few dollars.

In the mid-1980s, Dubb worked with a bank, which was using his landscaping service, to finance the development of some lots in East Meadow, Long Island. He became a builder and business grew rapidly. Today, Dubb's Beechwood Organization ranks at the forefront of privately-owned residential homebuilders nationwide. Since 1985, Dubb, now working with his son Steven, has built more than 7,500 homes in 60 communities across the New York metro area with new ones on the map in New York City, Long Island and Saratoga.

Dubb credits retired Hall of Fame rider Jerry Bailey, who he knows from playing tennis, with generating the idea of creating a facility at Belmont Park where the children of backstretch workers could go while many of their parents were at the track, often working long hours. Meeting with NYRA officials, Dubb secured the land, an acre just inside Gate 6, and funded a large portion of the building of Anna House, which he named for the daughter of racehorse owner and generous donor Eugene Melnyk.

It was around then that Dubb also became an owner. Though Dubb calls owning racehorses a hobby, he devotes time most evenings to his stable with the same commitment and attention to detail that he uses in running his business. “I look at each horse I own as an individual investment,” he said. “But I look at all the horses I own as a stock portfolio. Underperformers are moved along and there is a constant push to upgrade the portfolio.”

That philosophy has paid off handsomely. The winner of seven year-end NYRA owner titles, Dubb has campaigned some memorable horses, including Eclipse Award-winners Monomoy Girl, British Idiom and Uni. Another of Dubb's horses to wear his stable colors of yellow with a pink rose and pink cap was Condo Commando, winner at Saratoga of the 2014 Spinaway, the final race called by Tom Durkin.

It's at Saratoga where the Dubbs and the BCCA team look forward to cutting the ceremonial ribbon at Faith's House.
“This new facility fulfills a dream that the BCCA has been working on for over 10 years,” said BCCA President Libby Imperio. “We are so excited to bring a winning formula in child care to Saratoga and forever grateful to Michael and Lee for their leadership in making it happen.”

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Garafola and Gallardo have a combined 37 years of experience at NYRA. On Belmont's vast backstretch, they're responsible for the housing and well-being of a small city: anywhere from 450 to 600 backstretch workers living in approximately 500 rooms among 69 cottages.

On March 19, 2020, NYRA voluntarily suspended live racing at Aqueduct Racetrack due to changing circumstances in the racing community relative to COVID-19 pandemic. Although racing was stopped, the essential work of caring for the more than 1,300 horses stabled at Belmont continued.

“That's when you ask yourself, 'how can I make a difference?'” said Garafola, who is NYRA's Dormitory Supervisor.

Nearly a year later, Garafola and Gallardo, NYRA's Assistant Dormitory Supervisor, are making a difference. They're NYRA's “first responders before the first responders,” as Garafola put it – as part of an expansive Belmont backstretch team responding to protocols and processes put in place to ensure the health and safety of the community, alerting medical professionals as needed and even serving as translators for a diverse group of backstretch workers.

“Nick and Veronica have played an important role in the day-to-day challenge of maintaining a safe working environment on the backstretch,” said Glen Kozak, NYRA's Senior Vice President, Operations and Capital Projects. “They've done so with hard work and a lot of empathy, by adapting when needed and by following a strict set of protocols. This pandemic has created some unsung heroes in our business. They're at the top of list.”

Gallardo and Garafola routinely go above and beyond the call of duty for their friends and extended family on the Belmont backstretch.
“If a resident goes into quarantine, we stay in touch,” said Gallardo. “Sometimes, there's not much to say. We just want them to know we're thinking of them and that we care.”

Garafola and Gallardo credit NYRA's Preparedness and Response Plan Committee, comprised of key NYRA staff members as well as representatives of the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association (NYTHA), the New York Chapter of the Racetrack Chaplaincy of America (NYRTCA), the Backstretch Employee Service Team (B.E.S.T.), the Belmont Child Care Association (BCCA) and Premise Health – for taking an effective team approach to health issues, both big and small.

The committee has pitched in as needed, often on the fly. Last spring, in the early days of the pandemic, NYTHA received a shipment of several thousand face masks – at a period of time when masks could be hard to come by – and people from the committee groups made sure everyone on the backstretch received a mask and understood the importance of wearing one.

The team approach continues to pay off as representatives of NYRA, NYTHA, NYRTCA, B.E.S.T, and the BCCA have set up food banks, provided up-to-date communications on health care and distributed gift cards for groceries for the hundreds of Belmont-based backstretch workers and their families. Many of the tasks, too numerous to name, were performed essentially “on call” at all hours – and almost always involving Garafola and Gallardo.

“What Veronica and Nick do every single day is huge,” said Nick Caras, the NYRTCA's Programs Director. “The hours don't seem to matter to them. They just 'do,' helping us work together to make the backstretch safer for all.”

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Sal Sinatra, the president of the Maryland Jockey Club (MJC), which owns both Laurel and Pimlico Race Course, disclosed the plan of action during the Jan. 28 Maryland Racing Commission (MRC) meeting.

Sinatra has mentioned the track's efforts to control the rats at previous MJC meetings. But when he didn't bring up the subject during the MJC's monthly update that was on the agenda, commissioner Thomas Bowman asked him to detail a private discussion the two of them had recently about the rats, because Bowman said other commissioners should be aware of what is going on.

“We tried the experiment of emptying one barn out and letting the exterminators in there to do a 'full-court press,'” Sinatra explained. “It seemed to work for a couple of weeks. But after the horses and everybody were settled back in, they returned.”

As is the case in any rodent-control effort, educating the people who work in the stables about proper protocols and getting them to adhere to those guidelines is a key component of the plan.

“Right now it's a work in progress,” Sinatra said, adding that there will be a renewed focus to “clean up some bad practices that we all do back there that are actually keeping the rats, you know, healthy.”

Sinatra said that effort includes making sure horse feed is tightly secured in containers that are above ground level and taking care not to dump uneaten horse feed near the shed rows when meal buckets are cleaned out.

“We're currently paying well over $20,000 a month to these people [and] we need some extra expertise,” Sinatra said. “It's not that the company that were using isn't doing a good job and aren't responsive. But whatever they're doing, they're not getting ahead of the rat infestation.”

The commission's other business was brief on Thursday. The MJC voted by voice without objections to eliminate the allowable race-day threshold for clenbuterol that it proposed back on Oct. 22. No objections to the rule had been lodged during the rule's public commentary period. It takes effect Mar. 1.

J. Michael Hopkins, the MRC's executive director, said this time frame would “give all the horsemen ample time, if they are using clenbuterol, to cease using it for at least 30 days” before the rule takes effect.

The MJC also voted, without any voiced objections, to clarify, on an “emergency” basis, the language on its no-Lasix policy for 2-year-olds and in graded stakes races.

Other jurisdictions have recently enacted similar clarifications that led to unintended consequences when horses shipped from one racetrack to another and/or dropped out of stakes company back into a Lasix-allowed race.

Although the exact language of this new rule was not read into the record, Hopkins explained it is designed to prevent a horse from having to sit out for 60 days and then become recertified by a veterinarian as a bleeder to resume using Lasix, which unfairly penalizes those horses that participated in Lasix-free races.

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The drawing will take place at 4 p.m. on February 11 and the deadline for entry is February 10 at 10:59 p.m. Participants will enter to win one of two, eight-bottle baskets with values ranging from $1,000 to $3,000.

The first basket, called Cupid's Collection, features Pappy Van Winkle 12-year-old Lot B, Kentucky Par, Blanton's and more. The second basket, the Valentine's Bundle, includes three variations of Wild Turkey, two types of Basil Hayden, 10-year-old Kentucky Owl Rye Whiskey and more.

Tickets are $50 for one chance to win or $200 for five chances.

Baskets will be delivered for winners within the Louisville city limits. All other winners will need to arrange pickup.

“Proceeds from the Bourbon Bonanza will help fund our extensive efforts towards COVID-19 vaccine education, access and promotion for backside workers and their families,” said the BLC's Executive Director Sherry Stanley. “It is very important to us that our clients can make informed decisions that affect the health of their families and the entire community. The BLC is a trusted source of information and support, therefore it is vital that we are well-informed and presenting up-to-the-minute information in order to protect the well-being of the entire equine community of workers and families.”

The Backside Learning Center is a non-profit organization that works to promote community and enrich the lives of equine workers and their families at Churchill Downs. Since the onset of the pandemic, the BLC has provided emergency food relief, created a digital inclusion project to overcome the challenges of virtual learning, provided computers to 20 backside families, offered virtual English classes and more.

To purchase raffle tickets, click here.

To view the event on Facebook, click here.

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First, Woodbine has partnered with the Horses First Fund, which will sponsor a nutritious, hot meal each week. The program will start on Wednesday, December 23 with a roast beef lunch then continue Fridays after that. This generous offering will be incorporated into a larger effort from Woodbine to engage backstretch workers over the course of the winter months through activities, shuttles to local malls and product giveaways.

The Horses First Fund assists Thoroughbreds and their caretakers in need of emergency aid due to large scale neglect, natural disaster, or other catastrophes.

Horses First Fund founder Jaime Roth of LNJ Foxwoods said: “I was especially moved by the misfortune caused by the pandemic on the Woodbine backstretch workers. Throughout this challenging year, the Horses First Fund has provided emergency funding to seven aftercare organizations, four backstretch organizations, and contributed to two equine feed assistance programs.”

The Horses First Fund is administered by the Thoroughbred Charities of America.

Additionally, Woodbine has reduced the rent for those living on the backstretch by 50 percent. Both the sponsored meal program and the Woodbine rent program will support workers until the reopening of the backstretch in February 2021.

Finally, in addition to its regular annual donation, Woodbine will make a $4,000 donation to the Race Track Chaplaincy of Canada to help ensure proper resources, programming and support for those remaining on the Woodbine Racetrack backstretch throughout the winter.

“This year has been tremendously difficult for so many people, including those that contribute to our world-class racing at Woodbine Racetrack,” said Jim Lawson, CEO, Woodbine Entertainment. “We know that due to circumstances beyond their control, many are unable to be with their friends and family this winter. I would like to thank our partners the Horses First Fund and the Race Track Chaplaincy of Canada, whom together with us will help ensure that everyone here at Woodbine has the support they need this holiday season and beyond.”

Earlier this month, Lawson was on-site to personally hand out holiday gifts to impacted backstretch workers.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been difficult for the Woodbine Thoroughbred community. Due to government restrictions, the season started late and ended early, denying the community their ability to earn money from the final three weeks of racing.

Woodbine thanks those involved in the training and care of Thoroughbred horses and wishes the entire Thoroughbred community a healthy and safe holiday season.

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