“You know the problem with life?” he asks with a chuckle. “By the time you know everything you need to know, you're too damn old to do anything with it.”

But that won't keep the rest of us from profiting. We're not here to learn about the half-dozen mares Penn still shares with brother John and nephew Alex, over at their place near Paris, nor about the show horses keeping him interested in his own paddocks. Instead we're at chez Penn, on the Mount Horeb Pike outside Lexington, simply because few in our community bring longer experience to the ever-renewing challenges of the Turf. He's served 17 years on the city planning commission, twice as many as trustee of Georgetown College. He was one of the founding fathers of Horse Country, and has been with the KTA/KTOB forever. Nowadays, even at 78, he's helping the Agricultural Finance Board in Frankfort.

Still immersed, then, in the 21st Century Bluegrass. But have any of you, for instance, lately worked a sale the way he did, half a century ago–when Penn Brothers sold 70 yearlings in a single afternoon at Keeneland?

“It was unbelievable,” he recalls. “We had every third horse that went through. Never worked harder in my life. Talk about learning how to do things, how to cut and cover. We couldn't clean stalls. All we'd do is pitch it up in the corner and put more bedding in.

“Now, we didn't prep these horses like you do now. In the wintertime we ran them like cattle, put a halter on literally a month before the sale. We had catch-pens, we'd put a halter on, trim them, worm them, turn them back out. Of course when we got them up there [to Keeneland], you'd have three or four getting loose, running over the hill. But everybody's did that. And everybody sold their whole draft.”

After all, he never saw a horse with bad feet in the Pampas, when he had a chance to see how they did things down there.

“But I guess they were just bred different then,” he says with a shrug.

So, too, were the horsemen. As he puts it himself, Penn “became an economic asset at 14.” Bear in mind that his father and two uncles bought their farm at the end of the 1920s, even as all hope, all belief, was being gnawed out of their generation.

“They paid $350 an acre for 200 acres,” Penn explains. “They put 160 of those acres in tobacco and it brought a dollar a pound. A year later, it brought a quarter a pound. On the other hand, during the Depression they had all the help they could hire. So they just kept expanding. They were three risk-takers, and they knew how to work.”

By the time young Penn was putting his shoulder to the wheel, they had 480 steers–and a couple of hundred Thoroughbreds.

“They'd bought a farm that had horses on it,” he says. “Belonged to an Oklahoma oilman. So they just started boarding them. That's when they learned to be horsemen. And Oscar, the oldest brother, he really got into it. He studied it and decided that we needed two stallions. Well, we needed two stallions like we needed a hole in our head. But we'd set tobacco till noon, go in, eat right quick, go breed two mares, set tobacco till dark, breed two more mares.”

Penn was actually raised downtown. By living there, his family could share the same commute as the labor, day-hires who climbed onto the canopied pick-up at designated street corners every morning. By 14, Penn was leading a tobacco-topping gang. A year later, he was helping to haul lumber out of the mountains to construct huge barns. For years, “tobacco supported our horse habit.”

But so, too, did the steers–in the sense that one kind of husbandry supported another. A man won't panic, foaling, if he's pulled plenty of calves as a boy. Penn learned the hallmarks of good land, too. He knew, for instance, to be wary when cedars thrived in dry weather.

“Cedars only grow on marginal land,” he explains. “I learned all that stuff, growing up. These were three old, cynical men. But they knew land, and knew that's what they needed to produce the animals they wanted, the tobacco they wanted. Same with this land here. The number of good horses raised by the Elkhorn Creek is staggering. Lee Eaton taught me that. I used to think it was crazy. Then I saw Bold Forbes, and all the rest, and started believing it.”

Penn had grown up chain harrowing, soil testing, just doing what farmers did. Nowadays he sees people coming into the Bluegrass and feeding high-protein alfalfa. He can spot those easy enough.

“All you got to do is go around and see which ones have all that mud [i.e poultice] on their legs,” he says. “Pythiosis. Way too much in the feed tub. That grass out there, if it heads out, it's 18% protein. That's why you keep topping your pastures, you don't want it to head out.”

They bought weanlings before the word “pinhook” had entered the bloodstock lexicon, with only Stanley Petter ahead of the curve. Besides foaling out 50 mares, then, they would buy 20-odd weanlings.

“We found out that you could buy a weanling for $300 to $500 and sell it for $2,500 to $5,000,” he says. “You could raise those babies like you raised steers, but the profit per horse was so much better.

“We'd bed those weanlings on tobacco stems. We had a tobacco warehouse, so we could get carloads of that stuff. It was one of the cleanest things you could use at the time, when we didn't have woodchips or shavings. And then you'd take it out and spread it as fertilizer.”

But whatever Penn learned from steers, it was horses that taught him love. He bought his first mare at 16, as soon as he had a driver's license. For a while the Penns had a satellite farm in Ocala, and that was another vital chapter in his adolescence: selling 2-year-olds at Hialeah.

“We'd raise 15 or so down there, broke them, did the whole thing,” he recalls. “So really I got baptized pretty good, pretty young, though it wasn't as speed-crazy as now. Anyway I learned about sand colic, about fire ants, all that kind of stuff. It was all experience, and it served me well.”

Knowing what he wanted to do in life, it was only to please his mother–so that she could say that he'd “attended” college–that he consented to a single semester at Georgetown. But then he got his Vietnam draft number, and it was the kind that made you gulp. Suddenly he had to engage.

“Every hour I wasn't in class, I was in the library catching up,” Penn recalls. “Because if I flunked out, 90 days later I'd be in a rice paddy.”

Whether or not Georgetown College saved his life, it certainly changed it. He has been serving that institution in various roles ever since graduating in 1968. Around that time his father and uncles began to dismantle their partnership, and help the next generation on its way. His parents gave Penn the downpayment on an 87-acre plot, the core of which is where he remains today.

“But I soon found that my tobacco wasn't supporting my horse habit,” he recalls. “And then I got married, had kids, and had to find another way. I started boarding horses, and found out right quick that the only people you board horses for are the ones that can pay you. The economics I'd learned in college taught me that it's all about cashflow. You could be worth $2 million, but if you don't have cashflow, it doesn't matter. All you're doing is borrowing and paying.”

What got the household on an even keel was an unraced Pretense mare Penn bought for $34,000. She turned out to have a son in training with Wayne Lukas. He won the GI Remsen S. and started among the favorites for the Kentucky Derby. Penn rolled the dice, managed to get a season to Seattle Slew, and sold the mare for seven figures to Juddmonte.

He paid his $450,000 covering fee, took the rest to the bank,  and discovered the pleasant novelty of solvency.

“My friends and family all said, 'You're stupid to sell that mare,'” he recalls. “But the time to get out of debt is when you can. And a couple of years later I could have bought that mare back for $50,000. She never threw another horse that could run.”

They built their house, and built a client base: a small, loyal group that thought the same way. When Penn packed up, his newest customer had been there 20 years.

“We were lucky enough to board horses for people that wanted to enjoy the life with us,” he reflects. “They became like family, watched your kids grow up.”

These included Janis Whitham, her late husband Frank and their son Clay. The Whithams imported a Hall of Famer-in-the-making in Bayakoa (Arg), but thereafter it has all been acorn-to-oak stuff.

“Jan's a very intelligent lady,” Penn marvels. “She and Frank started out raising pinto beans. There's one stoplight where they live, and it's 25 miles to a grocery store. Jan trained Quarter Horses, raised five kids. And, to this day, she hasn't bought a mare. They had Bayakoa, and the Nodouble filly [Tuesday Evening], and one other, and just built up those families. She'll nick them on the bottom, she'll nick them on the top; and she's still doing it.”

The Whithams were determined to get one of Bayakoa's daughters to Mr. Prospector's last son in Kentucky, the unfashionable E Dubai. And that was how they got GI Breeders' Cup winner Fort Larned. From the Tuesday Evening line, meanwhile, came Four Graces (Majesticperfection), sold at Keeneland last November for $2.3 million.

But if Penn's professional career is rooted in the land, so too is his service to the community. When he bought his farm, straight out of college, he paid $2,000 an acre–“and that was $500 more than it was worth.” The value of land would soar, however, as developers realized they could get 10 perimeter acres for the price of one downtown. All around, the countryside was being cut to ribbons, in tracts too small to farm and too big to make communities.

“We were panicking,” Penn admits. “Go through other counties and you'll see it, all these 10-acre piano keys all down the road. Well, that's a terrible way to use land. We were able to convince the Lexington-Fayette County Urban Government to make the minimum subdivision 40 acres. And we've now preserved 32,000 acres. If you add what the Bluegrass Conservancy has been able to do, we saved 52,000 acres in Fayette County. Out of roughly 250,000. It's been a 22-year fight, but I feel good about where it is now, because I think people now understand the value of living here.”

And not just the economic value of the industry and its ancillaries. It was also about cultural identity and, what then remained latent, the resulting potential for tourism.

“John Gaines had it right,” Penn says. “He used to say that we live in the largest privately owned, privately maintained park system in the world.” He gestures towards the pike. “The city doesn't mow any of this. We mow all the rights of way. And why do we do that? Because our neighbor does. It's pride.”

Penn has stepped back from KEEP because it's time for the next generation to inherit the responsibilities that come with land.

“The average age of the Kentucky farmer is 60-plus,” he remarks. “A lot of land is going to change hands in the next 10 years or so. And how do you keep farmers, if farms are cut up in 10-, five-, even three-acre tracts? You don't produce anything. And who's going to come in and buy those tracts and put them back together, when each has its own house? The houses elevate the price of the land, and that price doesn't justify farming it.”

The Purchase Development Rights program, redressing the difference in value, was key to maintaining those 40-acre tracts.

“We were able to make it look like Holsteins versus Dalmatians,” Penn says. “Instead of a piece here, a piece there.”

Penn was part of the team that presented to the tobacco succession program, coming away with $15 million and then got another $20 million from the city. The tobacco money was an apt dividend for a man who had spent much time on the other side of that particular fence, as president of the Council of Burley Tobacco.

Besides his own crop, Penn had managed tobacco for other horsefarms, including Calumet. He was ringside as multiple attorney generals sued the cigarette manufacturers, even as the state was figuring out that it could no longer support a proven carcinogenic. During the public furor, Penn had found himself sent out to bat for tobacco.

“So over several years I learned how to handle polarization!” he recalls. “Because the medical community came after you hard. And there I was, on every radio show, every debate, defending this stuff. I'd never say that smoking's not harmful to you. But I would say it's a personal choice. I'd say: 'Nobody ever held a gun on somebody and told them to go buy a pack of cigarettes. Look, half the people in this audience are overweight. The other half drink too much.' Now all those things are very harmful to you. But the difference was that the government was supporting tobacco. So you could see that it had to stop.”

His tobacco background, incidentally, prompts a fascinating analogy for the modern bloodstock market. Because in terms of prizing speed, Penn reckons that the 2-year-old sales have changed the game much as the cigarette filter did tobacco.

“Before filters, the Burley is what gave the flavor and aroma,” he explains. “The companies needed that tobacco. But once the filter came, they could buy it cheaper all over the world.”

Penn says that if the market is driven by a bullet work, then all pedigrees become the same–much as Rwandan tobacco would now serve just as well as Kentucky's.

“If we're basing everything on how fast they can work, then nobody is prizing three or four generations of soundness,” he reasons. “And not only do you have weaker bone, now you also have trainers no longer racing a horse fit. They're so concerned about their statistics, they won't run a horse until it's dead fit. But guess who pays for that? The owners.”

But nor does he attribute soundness solely to genes.

“If you only turn a young horse out for a couple of hours when it's a pretty day, he won't run,” he says. “He won't have bone density. He may grow up to be a beautiful horse. But when you put pressure on him, he'll fold up like a marshmallow.”

Obviously producing stock equal to the demands of the racetrack today feels more important than ever. And Penn feels that we can't complain about federal interference, when we either couldn't or wouldn't police the game properly ourselves.

“But I swore I would never be a cynic,” he says. “Because I grew up with three old men that were cynical as can be. I mean, they'd see long-haired hippies and tell you the world's come to an end. But they taught me how to work and to understand that work is not really work at all, if you enjoy what you do.”

When Penn needed bypass surgery, a decade ago, he was told that it was time to move on his handful of faithful clients.

“Done all I can do for you,” the doctor said. “You got to get away from the stress.”

“I don't have any stress!” Penn replied. “My farm's paid for!”

Now he smiles and shakes his head. “Yep, something's there, when [clients] have five mares on your farm worth a million dollars apiece and no insurance on them,” he says. “But I didn't see that as stress. I saw that as an opportunity to raise good horses.”

Now the stakes are lower. True, Penn and his brother have an Empire Maker mare whose son Arklow (Arch) won $3 million. But whenever he needs to, he can just stroll to the creek and soon retrieve perspective.

“I have a deck built down there,” he says. “And I take my Racing Form or Wall Street Journal, and just sit there and hear that water go by, listen to the birds chirping, and life's not too bad.

“The point is that we all try to make a business out of it, but really and truly, it's a sport. It's an advocation. And it's so hard to do that people want to try it. You see them putting millions of dollars into this thing and along comes Rich Strike, Birdstone.

“I've always been in love with the horse. Can't be like that with 400 steers, but go down to the barn and every one of those mares are different. And I've been fortunate to be involved in some really neat things. I'm not saying I started any of them. But for whatever reason I was asked to participate, and I never knew how to quit.”

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Halstrom, who graduated from the University of Arizona's Race Track Industry Program, is a native of Bloomington, MN, and is a die-hard fan of the Minnesota Vikings, Notre Dame Football and all teams for the University of Minnesota. He and his new bride, Kristine, live in Greenwood, IN, and share five children among their blended families.

TDN: What is your racing or bloodstock highlight of the year?
Being at Keeneland for the Breeders' Cup and seeing Flightline in person. I can't believe what that horse was capable of doing.

TDN: Who is your value sire for the 2023 season?
Coming at this as a horseplayer – I like seeing young Jimmy Creed runners. Feels like they're all going to be fast.

TDN: Name one positive change you'd like to see in racing next year?
More focus on two things: What's best for the bettors and what's best for retired racehorses.

TDN: If you could go back in time and see one race in person, what would it be?Easy Goer's win in the Belmont. I was a huge fan and had too much riding on him, both emotionally and financially, to keep Sunday Silence from sweeping the Triple Crown. Watching him win at my young age helped form my passion for the sport.

TDN: If you could only go to one track the rest of your life, where would it be?
Since I can't answer Horseshoe Indianapolis – I'd say Keeneland. I love the area and the beauty of Lexington and the history at the track makes it my favorite place to watch racing.

TDN: Besides Rich Strike, what was the biggest surprise of 2022 in horse racing?
The biggest surprise in my world is that a little track, in the middle of cornfields, in Indiana did nearly a quarter-billion in handle in 2022. If you look back five years ago the thought of getting past $125 million was unrealistic. Lots to be proud of at Horseshoe Indianapolis.

TDN: What was your major takeaway from your successful meet at Horseshoe Indiana?
You can't beat the power of having a great team. We have one at Horseshoe Indianapolis. They're passionate about racing and enjoy working with each other. It's a wonderful place to be as we continue our progression in the industry.

TDN: You can bring back one racetrack from the past, which one would it be and why?
Hialeah. I never had the chance to visit but the stories I hear and pictures I see are incredible. Feels like we probably lost a bit of racing's character when it closed.

TDN: Who was your favorite TDN Rising Star in 2022
Arabian Knight. Saw him at Keeneland and he has a real presence.

TDN: In the next 10 years, what do you think will be the most significant change in racetrack operations and management?
I think we're sitting on technology improvements that will revolutionize racing. It's been gradual but we're now seeing things such as drones, GPS tracking and cameras to check the health of horses. The capital investments on these products and others that will help our sport is coming. It will have to in order to defend our current levels of business much less attract new customers.

TDN: Who is your favorite jockey of all-time?
I've met so many over the years that I now call friends that it's difficult. So I'll go with my dad's favorite… Sandy Hawley. In the early days of Canterbury Downs my dad would bet him blindly and it was easy money. I saw Sandy this summer and mentioned this and he was very gracious and appreciative. A really nice man.

TDN: If you weren't in track management, what would you be doing in horse racing
No question – I'd be betting on horses. I love it. Wish I were better at it so I didn't have to work so much! Going to the track, or just betting the races, with friends and family is may favorite thing in the world.

The post Twelve Questions: Eric Halstrom appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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While there was a public outpouring of opposition to segregation, it took thousands and thousands of simple, unpublicized acts to dismantle this institution which had remained in society since the Jim Crow laws of the 1800s. Horse racing was no different than the rest of society, especially in the South. So, in recognition of Black History Month, here's a little-known story.

Let's start with some background. Most people in horse racing recognize Charles John “Chick” Lang as Mr. Preakness. Through hard work and determination, Lang took the Preakness from a weak sister to the Kentucky Derby and Belmont to the “Middle Jewel” of the Triple Crown. During his decades-long stint with Pimlico, he set the Preakness on course to become one of America's great races. It is annually the top sporting event for Maryland and the city of Baltimore, with more than 100,000 fans in attendance and millions watching it on television.

As a former hotwalker, groom and jockey's agent, Lang was a true racetracker. He never forgot the importance of each individual who played a role in Thoroughbred racing. Lang believed the backstretch worker deserved the same amount of respect as the wealthy owner. He was a tireless advocate for the rights of the less fortunate.

Early in Lang's horse racing career, he was the jockey agent for Hall of Famer Bill Hartack. From 1954 to early 1960, Lang and Hartack had a great run. Lang was representing a jockey who was considered one of the most successful and highest-paid professional athletes in the world. In 1958, Hartack was on the cover of Time Magazine. From 1953 to 1957, Hartack averaged 355 wins a year. During that run he had tremendous success at Hialeah, which offered the greatest racing in America at that time of the year. Hartack, who would go on to win five Kentucky Derbies, was the most recognizable athlete in Thoroughbred racing.

Cab Calloway and Chick Lang | Courtesy Lang Family

The second character in the story is Cab Calloway, the Black entertainer who was a singer, dancer, bandleader and actor. His best-known song today is Minnie the Moocher (Hi-De-Ho!). He recorded one of the first music videos (and maybe the best). Calloway loved horse racing. Whenever possible, he would visit his local racetrack. Of course, when he went to Hialeah, he always looked up Lang, who marked his program with plenty of winners delivered by his jockey, Hartack. On one crowded day, Calloway mentioned that his normal seats were already taken and asked if Lang could help. While in the midst of closing entries, Lang gave Calloway his Turf Club pin without hesitation. He directed him to go see the maitre d' and have him seated at Lang's table.

A few minutes later, a dejected Calloway returned and told Lang that they wouldn't let him in the Turf Club because he was a Negro. The Turf Club was for whites only. Those who knew Lang and his famous jockey can guess what happened next. Lang went to a nearby phone and called the track manager, and there was a one-sided conversation that followed.

“If Cab Calloway is not good enough to sit in the Turf Club at this track, then my jock will never ride here again, starting today!”

Calloway returned to the Turf Club, got his table and the color barrier was broken at Hialeah.

Those who knew Lang understood he was a man of principle. There was no gray area in a matter like this. He also knew where his jockey stood on this issue. Hartack had numerous Black friends, many of them entertainers. Throughout his career, Hartack never wavered in important principles. I am sure Lang informed him of the incident that night after the races, and I am confident Hartack affirmed the importance of his actions.

Lang went to work as a racing official at Pimlico in 1960. He never wavered in his distaste for segregation. No flip-flopping on important issues. It was either right or wrong, no matter what personal consequences one might face. For example, in his first year at Pimlico, he did something that was not in his job description or within his level of authority. When he came upon the “White” and “Colored” signs on the drinking fountains at Pimlico, he took them down and they never came back.

Lang and Calloway showed us all on that day–at the races at Hialeah in the 1950s–that change is accomplished with courage and commitment, one step at a time.

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He was down to $100 from his total of five entries in the second-ever National Horseplayers Championship qualifying tournament staged at this iconic South Florida landmark.

Fisher bet his last money all to win on 22-1 longshot Cryptic Creed in the 10th race at Gulfstream Park. Less than two minutes later, jockey Jesus Rios guided the two-year-old maiden to a facile victory over the all-weather surface, producing a $45.40 payout that vaulted Fisher to victory over runner-up Phil Matzat and third-place finisher Ray Arsenault.

“I had packed up and I was at the door,” Fisher recalled. “I heard a big commotion from the tournament room and '10, it's the 10!' from the other handicappers. That was Cryptic Creed!”

The big payoff gave Fisher a total of $2,400 in tournament earnings, some $900 better than Matzat's $1,500, and almost $1,500 more than Arsenault's $908.

The champion collected $4,000 in prize money, with Matzat garnering $2,600 for second and Arsenault claiming $1,600 for third.

The top two finishers both earned seats in the National Horseplayers Championship finals at Bally's Las Vegas on Jan. 28-30, 2022, including hotel and airfare.

“I'll be there,” added Fisher. “I've been to 10 finals and I'm just as excited to go back for the 11th time! Champions was a great spot for the event. The staff treated us in a friendly and professional manner, and they fed us well!”

Overall, 46 handicappers purchased a total of 64 entries in the tournament and the Hialeah Park mutuel office reported a 74% handle increase over the average Sunday.

Champions Simulcast Center & Sports Bar, opened as “the go-to location” in South Florida for full-card simulcast wagering on Thoroughbred races in early 2016, features 180 television screens, 78 betting carrels (each with a 19-inch video monitor), 42 wagering windows, and space for 200 horseplayers complemented by an aggressive menu of simulcast wagering options.

The post Last Race Longshot Propels John Fisher To NHC Qualifier Win appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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It will be the second time an NHC qualifier has been held at Champions. In January of 2020, over 50 handicappers participated in the first such event ever staged at Hialeah Park, with Evan Freedman prevailing as the winner.

Handicappers can purchase their entries for the Dec. 12 NHC qualifier by visiting the Hialeah Park web site at www.hialeahpark.com. Walk-up entries will be accepted on the day of the tournament.

Scheduled as a points event on the 2021 NHC docket, the grand prizes will be seats for the top two finishers in the National Horseplayers Championship finals at Bally's Las Vegas on Jan. 28-30, 2022, including hotel and airfare.

Under rules established by the National Horseplayers Championship, participants in the Hialeah Park tournament must be 2021 tour members to earn a seat in the 2022 finals.

The $500 entry fee for current NHC tour members will cover a $300 live bankroll for wagering on designated races at Gulfstream Park and Aqueduct, and $125 for cash prizes.

The remainder of the entry fee will cover a buffet lunch, programs for designated races, and Hialeah Park swag.

The prize money pool, determined by the total number of entries, will be awarded on site at the conclusion of the tournament, with 50% going to the winner, 30% to the runner-up, and 20% to the third-place finisher.

Only current National Horseplayers Championship tour members will be eligible to win the grand prizes. The event will also be open to non-members and they will be eligible to win the cash prizes.

As an incentive, the NHC will offer first-time tour members $25 off the regular $50 membership fee if they register for the Hialeah Park qualifier and submit a $525 entry fee.

Champions features 180 television screens, 78 betting carrels (each with a 19-inch video monitor), 42 wagering windows, and space for 200 horseplayers complemented by an aggressive menu of simulcast wagering options.

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The qualifier will be held in the Champions Simulcast Center & Sports Bar on the second floor of the Hialeah Park clubhouse, located at 2200 East 4^th Avenue, on Sunday, December 12, 2021.

Handicappers can purchase their entries for the qualifying tournament by visiting the Hialeah Park web site at www.hialeahpark.com.

Scheduled as a points event on the 2021 NHC docket, the grand prizes will be seats for the top two finishers in the National Horseplayers Championship finals at Bally's Las Vegas on January 28-30, 2022, including hotel and airfare.

Under rules established by the NHC, participants in the Hialeah Park tournament must be 2021 tour members to earn a seat in the 2022 finals.

The $500 entry fee for current NHC tour members will cover a $300 live bankroll for wagering on designated races at Gulfstream Park and Aqueduct, and $125 for cash prizes.

The remainder of the entry fee will cover a buffet lunch, programs for designated races, and Hialeah Park swag.

The prize money pool, determined by the total number of entries, will be awarded on site at the conclusion of the tournament, with 50% going to the winner, 30% to the runner-up, and 20% to the third-place finisher.

Only current National Horseplayers Championship tour members will be eligible to win the grand prizes. The event will also be open to non-members and they will be eligible to win the cash prizes.

As an incentive, the NHC will offer first-time tour members $25 off the regular $50 membership fee if they register for the Hialeah Park qualifier and submit a $525 entry fee.

The post Hialeah Park To Host Qualifying Tournament For National Horseplayers Championship appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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During Stone's tenure at the helm of Churchill, from 1970-84, the Louisville track witnessed a remarkable three Triple Crown winners in Secretariat, Seattle Slew, and Affirmed. As Churchill's ninth president, he was responsible for instituting the 20-horse limit in the Kentucky Derby and also oversaw $10-million in physical improvements that included new Skye Terraces, a press box, jockey quarters, 12 new barns, fire-resistant tack rooms, sprinkling systems in all barns, a recreation building, restroom facilities, and fireproof stairways in the grandstand and clubhouse.

Stone had originally joined the Louisville track in 1961 as resident manager and jointly spent several years as president of both Churchill and Florida's Hialeah Park. He also served two terms as president of the Thoroughbred Racing Association of North America and was on various boards, including the American Horse Council, Jockey Club Round Table, and Kentucky Thoroughbred Breeders' Association.

Born in New Orleans in 1925, Stone was a member of the U.S. Coast Guard during World War II. A career in professional baseball followed. He signed with the New York Yankees and played with other minor league teams, then moved into management. He was part of the 1958 move of the Milwaukee Braves Triple-A team to Louisville and served as general manager of the Louisville Colonels until Churchill beckoned.

After retiring, Stone continued as a consultant to Churchill and other racing and sports organizations. Survivors include his wife, Jane Stokes Stone; three sons: Michael Stone (Katharine Friel) of Versailles, Patrick (Nora) Stone of Lawrenceburg, and Steve (Leslie) Stone of Nicholasville; two step-children: Charles (Christine) Halloran of Washington, D.C. and Ann Tarter Halloran of Lexington; and numerous grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and one great-great-grandchild.

A public visitation will be held from 3:30-5:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 28, at Kerr Brothers Funeral Home-Harrodsburg Road in Lexington. Private funeral services will be held at Kerr Brothers, with private burial to follow at Camp Nelson National Cemetery. Memorials are suggested to either the American Legion Man O' War Post #8 (1230 Man O' War Place, Lexington, KY 40504) or the Alzheimer's Association (Greater Kentucky and Southern Indiana Chapter–Kaden Tower, 6100 Dutchmans Lane, Ste 401, Louisville, KY 40205-3284).

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Someone sent me a link the other day to a list of all the defunct racetracks in the country and it got me thinking how sad it was that I had been to so many that have disappeared into the ether. That and whether or not I hold some sort of unofficial record of having attended more former racetracks than anyone else. I have been to 28 North American tracks that no longer operate Thoroughbred racing.

I started compiling the list when I was just a small child and my father would take me to the local tracks near Philadelphia and along on a lot of his business trips so that we could visit a new track in a new town. It grew when I attended college and picked up the Massachusetts fairs, Suffolk Downs and Rockingham, all of them now gone. My early years as a racing writer took me to places like Hialeah and Hollywood Park. One is a casino, the other a football stadium. There are so many that were unable to make it in an era where outside competition for the gambling dollar, real estate values and racing’s struggles to expand its fan base have made staying in business hard to do.

In a few days, I will be able to look back on the 48th anniversary of the first time I saw Secretariat run in person. It was Nov. 18, 1972 and I lived in the Center City section of Philadelphia and, of course, our family was not going to miss the opportunity to see Secretariat run in person in the Garden State Stakes. He was on the verge of superstardom and his appearance at the Cherry Hill, New Jersey, track drew a crowd of 25,175. The great horse did not disappoint, winning by 3 ½ lengths in his final start as a 2-year-old, cementing his first of two Horse of the Year titles.

The track burned to the ground in 1977, but was resurrected in 1985 by Bob Brennan. The new Garden State was supposed to be “the track of the 21st century” but come the early 2000s, its days were numbered. Unable to compete with the Atlantic City casinos and with too many racetracks in the Mid-Atlantic region for horseplayers to choose from, it limped to the finish line and never ran again after a short meet that ended in May of 2001.

Today, over the hallowed ground over which Secretariat, Bold Ruler, Kelso, Dr. Fager, Citation galloped down the stretch you can find a Cheesecake Factory. Very depressing.

Through the seventies and eighties I made many a trip, as well, to Atlantic City Race Course. My brother worked for Philly’s afternoon paper, the Philadelphia Bulletin, and, after his workday was done, we’d make the short trip down the Atlantic City Expressway to catch the last half of the card. Like Suffolk, Atlantic City limped along for years with short meets that allowed them to maintain their license, but ceased racing after 2014. The track still sits there, its owners trying to figure out what to do with the property.

The tracks I really miss are the ones in New England that were such a huge part of my life while I majored in Suffolk Downs and minored in economics while a student at Tufts University. There was a time when there were tracks in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island and Maine. They are all gone, leaving an entire region of the country that once embraced racing without a single track.

I made it to the old Rockingham once, early on in my freshman year, before it, too, burned down, in 1980. It was rebuilt and reopened four years later, but the new Rockingham was one of those places where there was no there there. It ran its last Thoroughbred race in 2002.

My favorite track, maybe of all time, was Suffolk Downs. I had an affinity for a hardscrabble, blue-collar, unpretentious track nestled between oil tanks where much of the racing was conducted during the harsh New England winter. For those who prefer Saratoga, Del Mar, Santa Anita, I don’t expect you to understand.

Suffolk Downs held on as long as it could, holding five or six-day meets to keep its license while ownership hoped to be granted a casino license. When Suffolk lost its bid, it was over. The track last raced June 30, 2019, and I was there to say goodbye. The property will soon be developed and include housing, stores, offices, you know, the usual stuff.

The Massachusetts fairs didn’t make it nearly as far. Back in the day, there was nothing like them. With a Ferris wheel, carnival games and 4-H club exhibits as a backdrop, Marshfield, Northampton and Great Barrington were New England institutions. With the legalization of pari-mutuel wagering in Massachusetts in the thirties, a thriving fair circuit got going, a refuge for horses and jockeys that couldn’t win any place else. Everybody who went to the fairs had a story about the fairs, like seeing 17-year-old Golden Arrow win at Great Barrington in 1978 or the time Zippy Chippy finished second at Northampton in his 98th attempt to break his maiden. And who can forget all the races that were fixed? There were hundreds of them over the years.

The fairs were so popular that a crowd of 27,048 once showed up at Great Barrington, which called itself “the Belmont of the Berkshires.” But they were a product of a very different time in racing. Northampton was the last survivor, running its last race in 2005. The fairs at Marshfield and Northampton continue to this day. Great Barrington has completely closed but there was talk before COVID-19 that it would be revived and run some of the dates normally reserved for Suffolk Downs.

I caught Ak-Sar-Ben near the very end. The same racetrack that once regularly drew 25,000 people Saturdays was crippled by competition from casinos in bordering states. It last raced in 1995

and the property has been converted to something called Aksarben Village, a development that includes part of the campus of University Nebraska-Omaha and a Godfather’s Pizza shop. I imagine Ak-Sar-Ben was a great track in its prime.

Bay Meadows is gone. So is Beulah Park, the Woodlands, Bowie, Liberty Bell, Sportsman’s Park, Manor Downs. I have been to them all. Green Mountain, which hadn’t run Thoroughbreds since 1976, burned to the ground in a suspicious fire just this last September. I remember taking the short trip over from Saratoga to catch a card at what was one of the sport’s most remote racetracks.
There was no saving most of these tracks. The exception is Hialeah. When it comes to sheer beauty and class, there was a time when it had no equal. To this day, the track’s website refers to it as “the world’s most beautiful race course.” Losing out on a war for the prime Florida dates, it became less relevant with each passing year until it ran its last Thoroughbred race in 2001. But still it sits there, kept somewhat alive by slot machines and fake quarter horse races. That the sport has never come together and found a way to bring Hialeah back to life is a failure that should have been corrected long ago.

There will be a new member to this list in just a few weeks. Calder/Gulfstream Park West is set to close for good after the Nov. 28 card. That will make my number 29. I’d be fine if it stopped right there.

Editor’s note: Think you can beat Bill’s Finley’s visits for live racing to 28 (soon to be 29) defunct tracks? Email us at suefinley@thetdn.com.

The post From Maine to California, These Tracks Are Gone, But Not Forgotten appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Mori was the son of Eugene V. Mori, Sr., owner of multiple racetracks including Garden State in Cherry Hill, N.J., Hialeah Park in Miami, Fla., and controlling interest in Tanforan out in California.

Mori was also instrumental in ending segregation at Hialeah Park in the 1960's, beginning with celebrated singer and dancer Cab Calloway in 1961.

The Sun Sentinel reports the day Calloway visited Hialeah Park:

“Mr. Calloway approached the doorman of the club house and attempted entry. The doorman would not allow him in as Hialeah was segregated. Mr. Calloway insisted that the doorman call the president of the track. Mr. Mori happened to be having lunch at the club that day. The doorman contacted Mr. Mori and said Mr. Cab Calloway was at the door and wants to come in. Mr. Mori asked, the doorman, 'Is Mr. Calloway wearing a jacket and tie?' As that was the dress code for all, 'If not give him one and let him in, and tell him he is my guest for lunch.' Eugene had been a great admirer of Cab Calloway and his music, and felt privileged to meet him that day. From that day on Eugene Mori, Jr. ended Segregation at Hialeah Racetrack.”

Read more at the Sun Sentinel.

The post Former Hialeah President Eugene Mori, Instrumental In Ending Segregation At Florida Track, Dies At 92 appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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