Colins Ghost

A handful of my colleagues from the Thoroughbred Bloggers Alliance will be participating in the NTRA Marketing Summit in September. Many have written about it and a few have asked for ideas about how to sell the sport to the next generation (Dana from Green But Game and Kevin from the Aspiring Horseplayer). I encourage everyone to submit ideas.

I had been thinking about how I would go about generating new fans for the sport when I came across something interesting in a book published by the Thoroughbred Racing Associations in 1945. Written just three years after Alfred G. Vanderbilt founded the organization, I found the sections of the book that focused on racing’s popularity particularly compelling.

With all the talk about increasing the fan base for racing, I thought it might be worthwhile to take a look at how an organization like the TRA interpreted racing’s success as it approached the height of its popularity. Author Tom Underwood wrote the following under a chapter heading “Racing Grows in Popularity” in 1945:

“Everybody likes a race. Into it are packed the elements that create entertainment and enjoyment. The suspense, which makes the mystery story popular, is there. The element of uncertainty dominates, despite the prodigious efforts of the handicappers to reduce selections to a science. The crowd adds to the excitement. The speed at which grueling tests are staged, the fun of ‘picking a winner,’ the teamwork required of jockey and mount and the long preparation and planning by a trainer and owner all combine to enliven the pastime

“John Hervey, dean of American turf writers, says that the phase of racing which remains supreme is that which deals with the class and character of the best horse of the season and the performances they recorded. Mr. Hervey has written of racing for 50 years, often under the pen name of Salvator. Referring to how the best horses claim the interest he writes:

‘In Time’s long audit nothing else connected with the Turf has much chance of enduring. It matters not how colossal a season may have been from any other standpoint, in the end it will all be consigned to oblivion except its performers and performances of lasting merit and distinction. Nobody today pays any attention to the number of people who attended, the amount of money they wagered or anything similar, let us say, during the season of 1920. What will forever make it memorable is the fact that it was Man O’ War’s year. In that sense it stands out with letters of fire ‘in the dreary chronicle of forgotten time.’

“In horse country folks have a way of counting time by horse and races as in some other sections events are marked by the year of heavy freeze or intense drought. There they will say: “That was in the year Exterminator won the Derby” or, perhaps, “It happened in Gallant Fox’s year.”

I am certainly no marketing expert and I understand the pitfalls of promoting individual horses in the era of early retirements and overly cautious trainers. However, what was true in 1945 is true today. And as simple as it may seem, the great horses (male and female) should be the primary focus for selling the sport to a new generation.

Proud Spell, Colonel John, Big Brown, Curlin, Ginger Punch, or Zenyatta are all potential historic markers representing the 2008 racing season for future race fans.

UPDATE 8/27: No sooner had I posted this that NYRA put together a Curlin page on their website. Three cheers to NYRA and all those coordinating promotions surrounding Curlin’s appearance at Saratoga this weekend. Well done!

NOTES, SOURCES, AND THOUGHTS

The above quote is taken from Tom Undewood’s Thoroughbred Racing and Breeding: The Story of the Sport and Background of the Horse Industry originally published in 1945 by the Thoroughbred Racing Associations of the United States. It is almost available in full at Google Books (portions are missing because of copyright limits).

Image of Man O’ War in 1939 from the Kentuckiana Digital Library

Check out the Thoroughbred Racing Associations of North America website for more info on their history and current role in the industry

Dana from Green But Game and Kevin from the Aspiring Horseplayer are collecting ideas for the NTRA Marketing Task Force. And don’t forget about the Self Appointed Fan Committee. Be sure to add your two-cents!

It was a great weekend of racing. I was on the wrong end of the photo in the Travers but stopped feeling sorry for myself when I thought about Neil Howard and the Farish family just missing in the Travers for the 2nd year in a row. (I also overheard a bettor say that he missed hitting the pick 4 by “that f—ing horse’s nosehair”…needless to say he was a bit disappointed)

Looking forward to another great weekend of racing. I am curious to see if Divine Park can run with the mighty Curlin. In my neck of the woods, Delaware Park has the Kent Breeders Stakes for three-year-olds on Saturday (won by No Biz Like Showbiz last year) and Philly Park will run the Pennsylvania Derby on Labor Day. I will be attending both and will be making my first appearance at Philly Park since they have added the slot machines. I know what a spirit-sucker the one armed bandits can be so I am interested to see what they have done to an already lifeless facility. I am looking forward to seeing Smooth Air (one of my Derby Trail faves) who is scheduled to run on Monday.

Thanks for reading and good luck!

A few hours after Gallant Fox lost the 1930 Travers to Jim Dandy – the “mud-loving, mud-running fool from California” – the Fox’s trainer “Sunny Jim” Fitzsimmons sat down with reporters to discuss the defeat of his triple crown champ. On Monday August 18, 1930, the Saratoga Springs newspaper quoted the great trainer at length.

Image: Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons with Gallant Fox at Saratoga, 1930. (Library of Congress)

Here are all of Sunny Jim’s comments as they appeared nearly 80 years ago:

“‘It’s the last time that Gallant Fox will race in a muddy track,’” said ‘Sunny Jim’ Fitzimmons. trainer of the erstwhile champion three-year-old of the season, as he sat on the porch of his cottage here some two hours after Jim Dandy, over a track deep with sticky mud, had checked the sequence of victories of the son of Sir Gallahad 3d.

The Saratogian, August 18, 1930

“”If the Travers had been earlier in the season I would have advised Mr. [William] Woodward [Sr.] to scratch him out of the race. But as Mr. Woodward was very eager to start him for the Travers and as the season was well advanced and the colt was in fine physical condition I made no protest in sending him to the post.

“”Gallant Fox had never even galloped much less raced in mud. His race in the Belmont couldn’t be called a muddy effort because the track at Belmont has a firm foundation and the topsoil on that day was merely wet and a trifle slippery. It wasn’t sticky and holding like the track here on Saturday. There is no nicer track than the one here when it is dry, but after a heavy rainstorm and when it begins to dry out it is heavy and holding

“”I was afraid of the going more for the aftermath of the race than the prospects of having him beaten. Mr. Woodward thinks a great deal of Gallant Fox and would prefer to give up any chance of winning stake events than have him injured. Why, after the race his first thought was about his condition. He said, ‘Is he all right?’ To the horse he said, ‘You did fine old boy. I’m glad you’re not hurt.’

Image: From the front page of The Sartogian, August 19, 1930, three days after the race

“‘I wonder if the patrons of the track appreciated the sportsmanship of Mr. Woodward and Mr. [William Payne] Whitney in starting their colts in the Travers under such poor racing conditions. I don’t know how badly Whichone is injured, but he certainly was very lame when I noticed him and he surely will be a long time away from the races. He is a valuable colt and one can’t get his kind every day’”

My comment: The Whitney-owned colt Whichone was considered Gallant Fox’s main rival in the 1930 Travers. He had beaten the Fox in the Futurity as a two-year-old and ran second to him in the Belmont Stakes. Whichone finished third in the Travers but bowed a tendon during the race. As far as I could tell, he never raced again.

Sunny Jim continues:

“‘The Travers appears to be particularly unfortunate for colts that have won important races early in the season. Take for instance Reigh Count. He had won the Kentucky Derby of 1928 and was regarded as the best three-year-old of his year. He started in the Travers and finished outside the money, Petee-Wrack, Victorian, and Sun Edwin finishing in front of him. That race too was run in the mud. Petee-Wrack, like Jim Dandy, is a great mudder. He proved it not only that day but in the Suburban Handicap this year by winning over a wet track.

“‘Reigh Count after his defeat in the Travers came back on a dry track to win the Saratoga Cup and the Jockey Club Gold Cup, the former at one mile and six furlongs and the latter at two miles. Well, I’m going to send Gallant Fox after both of these events. His next start, if all goes well with him and the track is dry, will be the Saratoga Cup on the last day of the meeting. He is in good physical condition, so we’ll take another crack at ‘em.

“‘You certainly can take a licking in good fashion,’ said one of his interviewers, ‘no wonder they call you ‘Sunny Jim’‘

“‘It’s all in the game’, said Fitz with a smile. ‘I’ve been licked before and I expect to be licked again. But if you’re afraid you’d better remain in the house and keep your horses in the stable. It’s the uncertainty of the sport that makes it so popular. No man has it sewed up.”

Image: Gallant Fox in the winner’s circle after winning the 1930 Kentucky Derby (Kentuckiana Digital Library)

Per Sunny Jim’s plans, Gallant Fox ran in and won the Saratoga Cup and the Jockey Club Gold Cup. He also won the Lawrence Realization. These were the last three races of his career. His loss to Jim Dandy was his only defeat during a near-perfect three-year-old season (9 wins from 10 starts).

Read more about the career of Gallant Fox at the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame.

Watch news reel footage of the 1930 Travers on You Tube.

MORE ON THE 1930 TRAVERS STAKES….

* Most race fans know that Jim Dandy won the Travers at 100-1 in one of the most shocking upsets in racing history. But it wasn’t this one long shot victory that put his name on a Saratoga stakes race. A year before winning the Travers, Jim Dandy won the Grand Union Hotel Stakes at Saratoga at odds of 50-1. That two-year-old stake was also run over a sloppy track. Anyone know of another race named for a horse whose two biggest victories came at odds of 50-1 and 100-1?

* Among the estimated 40,000 fans at Saratoga for Travers Day included New York Governor Franklin Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor. FDR had lunch that day with former classmates William Woodward and Harry Payne Whitney (they all attended the super-elitist Groton School in Massachusetts).

* The Saratogian reported on the day of the race: “Preparations were completed this morning for broadcasting the event over a long WEAF and WGY network – the first race to be broadcast from Saratoga in the long history of the event.“

* The 1930 Travers drew an unprecendented crowd to Saratoga Springs. Restaurants had record days and hotels reported business that “closely approached the record set in previous years.” And, of course, with the crowd came the traffic. According to The Saratogian: “The handling of traffic was said to have been the greatest task ever imposed on the Saratoga Springs police department…”

NOTES AND SOURCES

First, a big thank you to Steve Crist who touted this blog in his column in the Daily Racing Form on Sunday.

The following news stories used here were copied from microfilm at the New York State Library in Albany:
“Record Crowd To See Gallant Fox Battle Whichone”, The Saratogian, August 16. 1930
“Derby Day Brings Unprecedented Throng”, The Saratogian, August 18, 1930
“Mud Caused Champions Defeat Sunny Jim Avers, The Saratogian, Ausgust 18, 1930.
“Jim Dandy Beats Gallant Fox and Whichone in the Travers”, The Saratogian, August 18, 1930– the line about Jim Dandy being a “mud-loving fool” was from this article
“How Jim Dandy Beat Gallant Fox”, The Sartogian, August 19, 1930

Image of Sunny Jim and Gallant Fox from the Library of Congress

The other image of Gallant Fox is from the Kentuckiana Digital Library. They have five images of Gallant Fox in their database. The Digital Library has a varied collection of Kentucky Derby and other racing related images, it is definitely worth checking out. One of my favorites from the collection is this one of the winner’s circle after the 1930 Derby:

Speaking of Sunny Jim, as I have done before, I highly recommend Jimmy Breslin’s biography of the hall of fame trainer. It is out-of-print so it is expensive to buy but I found a copy in my local library. It will be well worth the effort if you can track it down.

Congrats to Proud Spell on her sweet win in the Alabama. I have been following her career since win number one at Delaware Park and was thrilled with her victory on Saturday.

Thanks for reading! Looking forward to a great weekend of racing…good luck!

Hialeah Park in Miami, Florida – currently on life support – received a boost recently with the news of “rich guy” Halsey Minor’s interest in reviving the great racetrack. Skepticism is a healthy state of mind for the race fan but after hearing Mr. Minor discuss his intentions with Steve Byk on At the Races last Wednesday (8/6) my skepticism has evolved into cautious optimism. I encourage everyone to listen to the interview (see link in Notes and Sources section below).

Image: Crowd watches horses enter the track (above) and gather around the paddock (below) at Hialeah Park Racetrack, 1938 (Photo by Marion Post Wolcott, Library of Congress)

Halsey Minor is a business man but, more importantly, he is a racing fan who doesn’t look at the sport with dollar signs in his eyes. He rejects the notion that slots are necessary to make a racing venue viable. If you are a racing fan who understands its intrigue beyond cashing tickets then Halsey Minor’s plan for Hialeah is worth paying attention to. Success at Hialeah could have repercussions for the game that go beyond South Florida just as it did in the 1930s.

Image: Hialeah Park Race Track on Florida Derby Day, March 31, 1931 (Library of Congress) Click image to enlarge

The story inspired me to do some digging in the New York Times for stories of Hialeah’s early days. Joseph Widener is the person most often connected with turning Hialeah into the racing palace it became in the 1930s. The track began running thoroughbred races in 1925 under the flag of the Miami Jockey Club but it was Widener who transformed the track into the most beautiful racing venue in the country.

When Widener purchased a controlling interest in the Miami Jockey Club in 1930 he made plans to make an already outstanding venue into one of the best. On being named the chairman of the Jockey Club’s executive committee, it was said of Widener, “He will be in direct charge of a plan to make the Miami Jockey Club a Winter Saratoga.” (Note: The track was referred to as the Miami Jockey Club from 1925 until about 1930 but soon after became known as the Hialeah Park Racetrack)

Image: The odds board at Hialeah Park, 1938 (Photo by Marion Post Wolcott, Library of Congress)

Widener began making immediate changes and improvements. At the conclusion of the 1930 meet, John Kieran’s Sports of the Times column reported on the “Widener Influence”:

“Incidentally, the last race hadn’t been run at Hialeah before Joseph E. Widener’s hired helpers were hauling palm trees and imported shrubs for planting beyond the backstretch and around stables. Other rich owners go for improving the breed, but Mr. Widener specializes in improving the tracks. Apparently, he believes with John Keats that a thing of beauty is forever and is determined to put as many race tracks as possible in the joyous class.

“When the owners and trainers stand in the paddock and talk blinkers, bandages, and breeding, Mr. Widener brings the subject of English elm for stable shade, boxwood for borders, red cedars for the north boundary, catalpas for June flowering and sweet gums for Autumn color.

“He is still working on Belmont Park, and he has just begun at Hialeah, He may not win the Derby this year, but he is a furlong out in front for the sweepstakes in landscape gardening.”

Image: Caption on on the photograph below reads: “Hialeah Park Fla., The World’s Greatest Race Course” (Library of Congress) Click image to enlarge

Widener may have started simple, but two years after the landscaping began, his grand vision for Hialeah came to pass. Back to to the New York Times January 21, 1932:

“Joseph E. Widener’s Hialeah Park race track recently revamped and beautified at a cost of approximately $1,300,000 will inaugurate its 1932 season tomorrow as thoroughbreds thunder down the stretch in the first seven races of a 38-day meeting…

“The opening will be a gala affair and a fashion parade for members of the Winter resort colonies along the Florida coast. Social registerities who have arrived at Palm Beach and Miami since the holidays will follow the custom of several years in accepting the Hialeah Park Inaugural as the semi-official signal for opening the Winter sports and entertainment program.

“The meeting will end Feb 27, with the running of the $10,000 Florida Derby.”

MY COMMENT: This isn’t the same Florida Derby currently run at Gulfstream Park (that started in 1952). The Florida Derby at Hialeah was run for the first time in 1926 and became the Flamingo Stakes in 1937. The Falmingo was won by such greats as Citation, Bold Ruler, Buckpasser, and Seattle Slew (see list of all winners)

“There is a possibility that Tropical Park will not reopen until Feb. 29 to prevent conflict with the Hialeah dates, but this has not been announced officially…

“An Australia totalizator, built for Mr. Widener at a cost of $300,000 and used in connection with pari-mutuel wagering systems legalized in Florida in 1931, will be a feature of the Hialeah race meeting.

“Approximately 800 horses are stabled at the Widener track on the outskirts of Miami, ready to enter the seven race programs. They represent the nations most prominent stables….

“The beautification program at Hialeah Park was undertaken by Mr. Widener after the Florida Legislature legalized racing and pari-mutuel wagering last summer over the veto of Governor Doyle Carlton. A total of 20,000 tropical trees, shrubs, and vines were placed to make the plant a tropic bower. The mile and a quarter racing strip circles an artificial lake, dotted with small islands, while walks and driveways are lined with royal palms and Australian pine trees”

The similarities between Joseph Widener and Halsey Minor are difficult to ignore. Neither man need(ed) racing to make their fortunes, their fortunes have already been made (or, in Widener’s case, inherited). Both appear to be driven by a love of racing and understand the power of place when it comes to our great sport. Joseph Widener used his wealth and influence to establish Hialeah as one of the wonders of American sport, let’s hope Mr. Minor can do the same to re-establish the track to its rightful place. And who knows, maybe bringing back Hialeah would send a positive ripple through the sport, just as it did in the early 1930s. Widener’s obituary stated: “In 1931 and 1932 a great expansion of horse racing took place in various sections of the country, all directly traceable to Mr. Widener’s pioneering in Florida.”

Good luck Mr. Minor — you have an army of dedicated fans who like Muslims to Mecca would faithfully make a winter Hajj to a racing palace in sunny Florida.

NOTES AND SOURCES

READ MORE ABOUT HIALEAH PARK:
horse-races.net – links to additional resources and photos of the track from 2006
National Historic Landmarks Program
Photo Gallery at icuban.com
Save Hialeah Park – includes links to the latest news on Halsey Minor’s plan to re-open the track and a great collection of historic images

Link to Halsey Minor’s interview with Steve Byk on At the Races. The interview is about half way through the first hour of the show on August 6.

See Hialeah Park at Google Maps

ARTICLES AND IMAGES USED FOR THIS STORY:
“Miami Track Opens Before Gala Crowd “, New York Times, January 16, 1925
“J.E. Widener Takes Miami Track Post”, New York Times, January 1, 1930
“Sports of the Times”, New York Times, March 15, 1930
“Flying Heels Wins as Hialeah Opens”, New York Times, January 15, 1932
“J.E. Widener Dies; Notes Turfman, 71″, New York Times, October 27, 1943

Images used here are from the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Additional photographs of Hialeah at the LOC can be found by searching “Hialeah” in the following database: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pp/pphome.html.

Of particular interest at the LOC are a series of images of Hialeah by photographer Marion Post Wolcott taken while she was under the employ of the Farm Security Administration (FSA) in 1938. Considering Wolcott’s interest in using photography to demonstrate the American class system, it is likely that she took the images of Hialeah with a less then an ideal view of the activity at the Miami track. Whatever her original intent, they provide racing historians with invaluable documentation.

View more Marion Post Wolcott images of Hialaeh at the Library of Congress (Viewing tip: Move between image groups to see all of the photographs of Hialeah available online)

Read more about Marion Post Wolcott

Thanks for reading and good luck!