Your Earliest Turf Memories?

[strapper]

For me it was the historic Fair Grounds. I used to ride my bike two blocks and peer through the chain link fence with my boyhood companions. We'd pick up old programs and bring them back home and pretend we were racehorses. We'd run down the street against each other. I was always "Santiago" which was a grey by Oil Capital that was my first fav horse. I'd read the Times Picayune in the mornings to watch for his name when he would run. This was in the late 50's.

[michiken]

My Aunt Shirley used to pile 4 or 5 of us kids into an old yellow Nova...

We would get up at regular school time in the summer and head over to Detroit Race Course and watch the horses workout. (We lived less than a mile from the track which is now a Home Depot, Costco and Meijer).

I didn't really understand the workouts at the time, but look what a horse racing degenerate I have become!

[joanied]

1961...Carry Back. We'd moved from Brooklyn to Elmont...and just got a TV...shortly after we moved to Elmont I was with my mom driving to Franklin Square...and we passed this huge 'thing' on Hempstead Turnpike. Belmont Park...hhmmmm..what's that? A race track...for horses...ohboy, I already loved horses...a kid from Brooklyn, go figure... we drove up Franklin Ave and stopped...I looked through the fenceline and saw horses...lots of them...and when we got home I noticed that the newspaper had race entries & results....and that lead to me finding Carry Back, and discovered that TV had the races on every week, including the Kentucky Derby....I remember my dad rooting for Sherluck (I guess the name is Irish sounding, and he was an Irishman)...I rooted for Carry back and the rest, as they say is history....I was hooked.
And that started me on my quest to work with the TB. As luck would have it, I went to school with and became best friends with a son of the great outrider, Jim Dailey (he brought Secretariat back after his Belmont and was the outrider when Ruffian broke down ect)...and not too long after graduation...I was on the backside walking hots for Ira Hanford....I was one of the very first females on the backside...a pioneer and proud of it!!

Tah-Dah!!!!

[Overlay]

Hearing the voice of Fred Caposella calling the race of the week on TV. Also watching a weekly televised racing show sponsored by a local grocery chain that gave out entry forms listing a horse in each of five races (with increasing cash prize amounts), where if the horse on your entry form won the race, you'd win that amount. I believe the races were from Sunshine Park (now Tampa Bay Downs), with Jack Drees as the announcer.

[LottaKash]

Fond memories of the Turf Races at Monmouth Park,(60's & 70's) when it was a seashore resort type place.....Can still remember the smell of the grass, and the odd sound the hoofs made on the turf compared to the dirt.......miss it......

best,

[GaryG]

I lived in So Cal for several years growing up. After school my dad used to take me to Santa Anita for the last race because they let you in for free. My first favorite horse was a stretch runner from King Ranch named Rejected. He was pretty competitive with the best hcp horses in the mid-50s. And the great Joe Hernandez. Then I started cutting school to go all day. Got busted once but that is another story.

[kitts]

My first bet was a $2 show bet at Del Mar in 1949. If you were tall enough to reach the window, your bet was accepted-no age problems. Needless to say, I cashed that first bet for $5.40 and said "How long has this been going on?"

It was about 100 miles by train to Del Mar and I was only 14 and never understood why my mother permitted this vacation. It all started with a pinball-like horserace machine that you could accelerate your horse somehow and maybe win some coupons. You could redeem the coupons for toys but my buddy was way too savvy and learned the drill about exiting the arcade and walking outside to the popcorn vendor who redeemed those coupons for (very little) money.

And I also was a big fan of Joe Hernandez

[Tom]

1960 something..Finger Lakes, Race 1, Morganfield, $28.80 to win. $2.00 ticket, from 4 weeks of 50 cent allowance on his nose.

The rest of my life is hazy.

[Cangamble]

1975 at Woodbine. I was 14 years old and in high school. The form didn't keep records of lifetime turf starts back then, and Vignette ran on the grass against males in her only grass race. I was waiting for her to hit the turf. She finally did, and her only turf line was gone. The winner of the turf race against the boys wound up a stake horse.
Anyways, I think it was a 5 claimer on the Marshall turf course. She was in an entry with one of the worst horses ever All Forlorn (so she took none of the action).
I was in school that day, but there was a guy whose dad was an owner trainer, and he had a horse running that afternoon. Coincidentally my father and his father went to school together as well.
I asked Donnie if he was going to the track the next day. I thought that it would be a bit of a longshot that he would skip school for that, but he told me he was going. I gave him a whopping $4 and told him to bet the horse for me.
I hurried home from school the next day. It was the last or second last race of the day. Back then there was a local radio station that played the stretch runs on tape just slightly after races were official.
I heard the horse win. And then Daryl Wells gave the prices (I think Davies put Chris Rogers on the winner though his son Norm was listed on both if I remember correctly). I don't remember the exact amount, but she paid slightly over $100 to win.
I didn't have Donnie's number, so I was a bit anxious waiting to see if he'd come through with the money (maybe he will come up with an excuse was my fear).
But the next day at school, he came through. I gave him a twenty buck tip.

[john del riccio]

1st trip to MTH Park with my mom & dad when I was 5. We sat in the picnic area. The smell of the place was intoxicating. They only had 8 races in those days. My mom read the names of the horses to me in each race and asked me
to pick one. I selected 5 winners from 8 races. My dad didn't bet any of them (the hard-core handicapper). My mom bet all of them. Needless to say, my mom paid for dinner....


John

[Dan H]

Early 70's ... Cahokia Downs ... just across the river from Saint Louis.

We would pool our money together ($10.00 at the most) and let our buddy do the handicapping and wagering. Our goal was to win drinking money for the rest of the weekend. Sometimes we drank Budweiser, some times we drank Falstaff.

I still call that buddy once a month to get his win picks. I'm glad Falstaff closed their brewery down.

Dan H

[cj]

My first trip was back in high school with two classmates. One is a current track announcer, the other a trainer at CharlesTown. We went to Bowie and hung out most of the day in the booth with Dick Wooley.

I remember that day watching a first time starter trained by Odie Clelland romp at big odds, and continued to bet him successfully in that spot for years until he died.

[chrisl]

It was early 70's at Longacres race track in Washington state. I was 10 years old, so I could get in the track with my father. I would get $10 and run $2 show parlay's. My winnings would go to pop and hot dogs. I remember one day doing so good, I could afford one of those standing prime rib, bbq sandwiches, that Longacres was famous for..What great memories..Chrisl

[dutchboy]

1985 Arlington Million. I had read that English horses preferred a soft turf which AP had that day.

So I bet a straight exacta Teleprompter (GB) with Greinton who I seem to recall was from Calif. It came in and paid something like 240. I can even remember where I was standing when the race was run.

[Tape Reader]

My early visits to the track were not that memorable as I usually lost; Aqueduct in the 60's. However, last year was my proudest moment.

It has been a family tradition to visit Saratoga every year. Last year, my two granddaughters were very successfully playing a jockey/trainer angle. Late in the day they bet a speed horse in a long race. It was raining so we were all watching the race on the big screen in the clubhouse. The two girls, dressed to the nines with Saratoga fancy hats, were screaming their heads off as their horse was leading all around the track. They were actually attracting a crowd. Even the ticket lady was rooting for them.

At the finish, some jerk opined that their horse got caught at the wire. So What, my 7 and 5 year old granddaughters replied, we bet him for place.