In 1978, John Lydon walked on the stage for the last time as a member of his first band and launched into a song entitled “No Fun.” He ended the song, and the band, by asking the crowd, “You ever get the feeling you've been cheated?”
Six years before that, my father took me to the racetrack for the first time. I was six and where he took me specifically was a barn on the backside of Fonner Park in Nebraska. You probably didn't know where that track was until, for a brief moment in time captured with astounding poignancy and accuracy by the New York Times' Joe Drape, it was one of the only tracks operating during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic.
We went to visit Clark “Shorty” Hudson and his wife, Helen, who were part of the village of folks from a small town in southern Nebraska that – for all intents and purposes – helped to raise my orphaned father.
I still have the smell of the barn in my head. It was heaven to me. I still remember the names of most of their six or eight horses. In 1974, Dad claimed his first horse, and a couple of weeks later she won. And I was hooked.
I could go on and on to make my point, but this sport has meant more to me for more than 50 years than I could ever explain. If you are reading this, you know what I'm talking about.
But, I want nothing to do with it anymore. It's no fun. I feel like I've been cheated.
A few weeks ago, horse racing ushered in a new season of four- and five-horse fields in California where officials kowtow to a man who is allegedly good on television. And there will be stakes races there where he has three of the five entries.
In Florida, two or three barns will win every open stakes race. In a lot of them one man will own two or three of the entries and the others will be owned by partnerships of partnerships who figured out that they can increase their chances of winning by not competing against each other.
In Philadelphia, Ozone Park and a few other places, races will be run in front of virtually nobody and the horsemen will split up what amounts to welfare from a pool of money that the “casino and racetrack” makes off of people who are sitting in a dark, depressing room full of clanging sounds mindlessly pulling a lever (or do they just push a button now?). Eventually the day will come when operators figure out how to stop subsidizing this sport with their casino money.
The ostensible flagship entity in horse racing will count their NFL money that came from selling a breathtaking shrine to the sport given to us by a man who loved the game so much, he wouldn't let it die in Illinois even for a few weeks. And now, Illinois racing can only count the days until it's all over. Then I presume, the flagship owners will turn their attention to doing away with the nation's second oldest track. I'm sure they've already started.
Eventually we'll get to the first Saturday in May and we won't see the best horse of this generation there because, well, you know.
And it won't be a celebration of the glory of this sport, although we'll try to make it look like one with a bunch of celebrities trying to outdo each other in a ridiculous couture pageant.
What it will really be: One long, sad attempt to explain ourselves – again – to a nation that only cares about our sport four days a year (sometimes only three) except when we shock them with yet more carnage, or maybe a massive fraud conspiracy.
I haven't been an owner or breeder for about seven years. I haven't worked on a backside in 26 years. I only play eight to 10 times a year (I live in a state that hasn't legalized account wagering and I hate sitting around in a simulcast dump) but I have handicapped and watched races almost every day since TVG went on the air.
I had always intended to get back to the sport and enjoy it as an owner and more frequent player when I retired. And now that I have, I want nothing to do with it. It's not fun. I feel cheated. I don't want the foul stench of this on me. I'd be embarrassed to be a part of it.
It just occurs to me that if someone more or less born and raised on this sport and spiritually fed by it for over 50 years because it was so much fun – because most of the best memories of his life came from experiences as a member of the racing family and the beauty of this sport – reaches the point that he doesn't want to look at it or even hear about it anymore, then the least he can do is tell this thing he loved why he's leaving. And now I have done that.
– Name Withheld, Texas
Editor's note: The writer asked that his name be withheld because of familial ties to individuals currently employed in the horse industry.
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The post Letter To The Editor: Why I Am Leaving The Sport I Loved For 50 Years appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.
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