Most Unbelievable Racing Stories of 1979

            As 1979 fades into the sunset, it seemed appropriate to review those newsworthy items that crossed my desk during the course of the year.  Upon reflection, however, it dawned on me that it would be relatively superfluous to merely remind you that Affirmed passed Kelso’s career earnings, that Coastal got revenge for his sire, Majestic Prince, in the Belmont at the expense of Spectacular Bid, or that Laffit Pincay, Jr., became the latest member of the now apparently annual “Top Six Million Dollars In Jockey Earnings” Club.

            What did attract my attention, though, was a collection of items I had accumulated in a folder marked ‘Stories That Never Made The Press’, a group of sometimes deviously acquired news items that the public never got to read.

            Their absence from your local media wasn’t so much that they were all that secretive.  It was simply that, if published, no one would have believed them, and any editor or writer that released them would probably have been laughed out of town.  Since I’ve been in that situation before anyway, that potential fate didn’t particularly disturb me.  Thus I decided it was my journalistic duty to let you in on the heretofore unpublished Most Unbelievable Racing Stories of 1979.

            In April, trainer Sandy Gostin flatly refused to enter his three-year-old sensation, I Am Legend, in the Kentucky Derby, despite considerable encouragement from his friends and the racing press.

            “This horse has had a tough enough campaign as it is,” Gostin commented, “without risking breaking him down just for the sake of a little glory.  You people have to realize that he’s just a baby who needs time to grow up.  Asking him to run a mile and a quarter in May is like forcing a ten-year-old kid to run a five mile marathon race on concrete; all you’ll do is screw him up.”

            When contacted, owner Richard Bowen supported his trainers decision.  “I think the Derby should have only the horses that have shown the most maturity and stamina of their crop, and even then the race probably shouldn’t be more than a mile.  I’d rather have a sound horse at four and five than hurt him at three just to get my name in the record book.  I owe that much to racing.”

            Milton Stewart, a regular patron at Paradox Park, emerged victorious in that track’s annual Fan Handicapping Contest by picking seven out of nine winners on closing day.  Among his prizes were a new television set, a savings bond and a free 1980 season pass to the Turf Club.  While grateful for the TV and the low interest bond, Stewart politely declined to accept the season pass.  When asked why he would turn down the chance to save the regular $7 admission charge every time he visited the track for an entire year Stewart told the press that, first of all, it would probably offend some of his friends, all of whom would want to borrow it when only one at a time could actually use it.  “Plus,” he emphasized, “I’ve read a number of articles about how the tracks are having serious financial problems.  It seems to me that if I continue to pay my way into the track I’ll be helping them as well as the horsemen, who need more purse money.  Besides, why should I get in free when a lot of people who are going to lose money anyway have to pay for the chance to do it?”

            At last report Stewart was undergoing extensive tests at the Daisy Hill Funny Farm.

            Immediately after finishing first in the seventh race at Devious Downs, jockey Victor Veracity asked the stewards for an inquiry into the running of the race.  Inasmuch as he had won the race, the stewards promptly asked Veracity to come to the booth,  watch the film with them, and explain the nature of his request.

            After reviewing the films, and not noticing anything unusual, the still somewhat stunned stewards asked Veracity just who he was claiming foul against.

            “Why, myself, of course,” Veracity replied.  “If you’ll look at the film again, you’ll notice that I bore in on the eight horse turning for home and definitely cost him the race.  In my opinion my horse should be placed third, plus I should probably get a five day suspension for interference.”

            At Miraculous Meadows on October 27^th Anthony Lima, a pari-mutuel seller at the $100 window, misunderstood a bettor and punched out three Win tickets on horse number eleven when the patron had asked for number seven.  After issuing the customer the correct tickets, Lima was unable to sell any of the incorrect tickets to the subsequent customers, and was faced with the prospect of having to put up $300 of his own money on a 17-to-1 shot.  Miraculously, however, the eleven won, paying $36.80, and Lima suddenly found himself $5,520 richer.  After explaining his good fortune to his fellow employees, the obviously excited Lima asked to be excused for the remainder of the day.  Half an hour later he spotted the bettor he had misunderstood in the Club House, walked up to him, and handed him $2,000 in cash.  “After all,” he explained to the bewildered loser, “if it wasn’t for you I never would have made all that money, so it’s only right that you should share my windfall with me.”

            Lima subsequently learned that the man spent the ensuing three days at Meadowsville Hospital undergoing shock therapy, and asked them to send him the bill.

            At Reformation Race Course state steward Donald Shine unexpectedly announced that he was resigning from his position after only two weeks on the job.

            “Let’s face it,” Shine said a hastily convened press conference, “I’m a political appointee because I helped the governor get elected.  I still don’t know a fetlock from a furlong, and it’s not fair to the public or the horsemen that I should sit in judgment over something I don’t know anything about.  Plus, why should the track have to pay my salary when they didn’t even have the option of hiring me?  This job should only be handled by a retired jockey or racing official, someone who knows something about the sport.”

            There was no immediate confirmation of rumors that the members of the state racing commission were considering following Shine’s example by resigning en masse.

            In a reportedly rejected story for the national magazine Pedigreed Chronicle, racing writer Steve Mansfield, reporting on the $100,000-Added Multitudinous Mile, observed that, as far as he was concerned, “none of the horses had any business competing for such an inflated purse.  Racing has reached the point that anything with three or more legs seems to be eligible to run for utterly obscene amounts of money, and then be immediately compared to Man ‘o War.  This years Mile was a complete travesty of Thoroughbred racing, and the only people more gullible than the starry-eyed owners who had the temerity to enter their alleged horses was the racing public, which was actually feather-brained enough to wager money on them.  I’d tell you about the winner, but I don’t want to mislead the breeders or the public that will be reading this.  Besides, he’ll be pulling a milk wagon next week anyway, so why bother?”

            Mansfield was last reported to have been thrown out of the International Racing Correspondents Association and is said to be living on welfare in Puerto Rico.

            At the conclusion of the Weanland Sales, the leading consignor offered a 50% rebate to everyone who had purchased one of his horses.

            “Look at it this way,” Fertile Farms owner E. B. Ransacker commented on his decision.  “I made a couple of hundred grand on that sale, and I really don’t need that much money, most of it’ll go to the taxman anyway.  So why shouldn’t I give my customers a break instead?   Besides, the little guy can’t afford to buy a horse at a sale these days, and that’s no way to get younger owners into the game.  Not to mention the fact that I think most of my horses sold for more than they were worth anyway.  Heck, next year I’m thinking about giving all the buyers a free service to my top stallions.  After all, isn’t this supposed to be a sport as well as a business?”

            The nation’s newest track, Fashionable Fields, announced the plans for its inaugural 1980 meeting.  In a prepared press release, track president George Nayeve emphasized that all of Fashionable’s facilities were constructed with fan comfort the foremost consideration.

            “One of our major innovations,” he stated, “is that there will be no standing room areas to be jostled around in trying to see the races.  The entire plant consists of cushioned seats with arm rests so that a fan can relax comfortably no matter what part of the track he is located in.  These seats, I might add, are free to everyone who pays the standard $2 admission fee.  Parking will also be complimentary.  We will also have hostesses available to procure wagers, libations and sandwiches.  Our bartenders have been instructed to pour at least an ounce and a half for every $1 drink, plus we have advised the caterer to put ham in the ham and cheese sandwiches, which will also retail for a dollar.  There will also be a notice in the program, which is also complimentary, that it will not be necessary to tip the hostesses or bartenders, who will receive the best wages by far in the industry.  It is our goal to convince the public that a day at the races can be the most comfortable and least expensive sporting event in the country.”

            Most observers agreed that Fashionable would either be the most revolutionary track ever built or else would go bankrupt in the first week.

            In the race to decide Horse of the Meeting honors at Felicitous Fields, the Sweepers Club Brass Spittoon Handicap, Asseverated won by three-quarters of a length over his main challenger, Marvelous Call.  While there was some talk about the possibility of a subsequent match race between the two horses, Asseverated’s owners felt that the best interests of their horse would be to retire him, feeling that he had proven everything he needed to on the racetrack and had earned a life of leisure.

            Marvelous Call’s trainer, ‘Smiley’ Phelps, was asked if he felt that Asseverated’s connections were avoiding him by declining a match race, and if he felt any bitterness about not getting another chance to run against them.

            “Of course not,” Phelps replied with his customary humility.  “It’s none of my business what they decide to do with their horse.  As a matter of fact I admire them for wanting to retire him as a sound champion instead of risking injury, or worse, in some stupid match race.  Besides, they beat my horse fair and square, so what’s there to prove?  Asseverated earned the title, and I want to wish them all the luck in the world.”

            In Washington, D.C., an unidentified source leaked a rumor that Congress was considering a bill that would not only eliminate the confiscatory withholding tax on large winnings at the racetrack, but would also mandate all racing states to take no more than 1% of the pari-mutuel pools as license fees, with the remainder of a proposed 12% total take-out going directly to the racing associations and horsemen for the betterment of the sport.

            “Some of us in the legislature,” a similarly unidentified sponsor of the alleged proposal was quoted as saying, “recognize the favorable socio-economic impact that horse racing offers to the communities in which it exists, and that it is our duty as representatives of the people both to perpetuate as well as try to improve the viability of these enterprises.

            “It is our firm determination not only to benefit the public in the form of more equitable tax structures and returns on the wagering dollar, but to also provide more realistic remuneration for the associations and horsemen, recognizing that improving their currently tenuous financial situations will ultimately result in increased capital expenditures in the sport and, eventually, benefit everyone connected with it.  We want the participants to receive as fair a return on their investment as possible, while encouraging the continued growth of a sport that traces back to our colonial heritage.  Racing was not meant to be utilized as a political plum or parasitically exploited for the sake of expediency by fiscal incompetents.”

            Well, I told you the stories were unbelievable…