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New Jersey Turnaround

New Jersey Turnaround

This weekend, Kim was up visiting her mom, so after a morning work meeting on Saturday, I did a quick trip up to New Jersey to help with some family business.

A New Jersey Turnaround so to speak.

The nagging song in my head the last couple of weeks has been Las Vegas Turnaround by Hall and Oates.

Las Vegas Turnaround was on the album Abandoned Luncheonette released in November of 1973.

I wasn’t a really big Hall and Oates fan back then in that I don’t think I ever bought any of their music and besides, you could hear plenty of it on the radio.

But I remember the first time I heard this song.

 

To my parents, it was known as Hi-Henry’s.  Then for a little while, the Cat’s Meow and I am told, JM’s River Edge.  Then for many years and up until recently, it had been the Casa Comida Restaurant.

In my life experience, however, in the early to mid-1970’s, it will always be remembered as Barry’s.

Crossing over one of the two bridges that connected Oceanport with Long Branch, the Branchport Bridge, the old building, and the prominent sign always greeted you on your right.  I remember that sign growing up, in whatever iteration it was at the time.

 

The last couple of years, other than two day trips, once for my brother Carl’s memorial service and once for my Aunt Joan’s funeral, I hadn’t been back to New Jersey.  In fact, the last time I spent a night there was the night before my brother passed away.

But in late July Kim and I had the opportunity to go back up to celebrate my sister’s 70 th birthday and visit an old friend, Monmouth Park, on Haskell Stakes day.  It was a nice weekend and it was nice to be back.

And then yesterday, arriving late in the afternoon, I made the nostalgic trip over the Branchport bridge with the building that was Barry’s in my teenage years, now empty and for sale on the right as I left Oceanport.  Then I made the left on Atlantic Avenue to head to the ocean to visit another place that had significance in my life growing up, the North Long Branch beaches.

 

In 1973, the legal age to be served alcohol in New Jersey was eighteen. Even though I didn’t turn eighteen until June of 1974, that didn’t keep me from being one of the regulars at Barry’s.  Some long hair, an early attempt at growing some facial hair, my brother’s draft card, and a good friend who was already eighteen who worked there, and I was good to go.

I even remember nights we closed the joint and ended up sitting at a table having a beer with the owner, Barry himself.

Barry’s always had good live music.  Tim McLoone, of McLoone’s restaurant fame, played there regularly early in his career.  He is somewhat of a legend along the section of the Jersey shore where I am from but with a restaurant now at the National Harbor he is known in the Washington DC area as well.

Another band whose name escapes me would let me join them and play harmonica occasionally.  That sometimes went well and other times did not.

And then there was my favorite band, Guildersleeve (I think that is how it was spelled).  A versatile band with a female and a male lead singer.  There were a couple of songs, however, during their sets, when the bass player would sing.  One was Drive my Car by the Beatles.  The other was Las Vegas Turnaround.

 

I guess going back to Oceanport after a couple of years, spending some time in the picnic area of Monmouth Park on Haskell Day, and having that song playing over and over in my head recently has made these last few weeks a bit nostalgic for me.

It was about this time of the year 44 years ago that I was getting prepared to leave Oceanport.  I remember at the time friends telling me I would be back in three months, and that I would never be able to leave Oceanport.  And though that first year I probably spent more of my weekends in Oceanport than I did away from Oceanport, I never did go back there to live.

But hey, who says you can’t go back?

Who says you can’t go home?

Somebody from Jersey maybe?

But it’s alright.

Yeah, it’s alright.

Unlike Bon Jovi though, I am still waiting to crash into my pot of gold.

But it’s alright.

In fact, it’s good.

 

The Branchport bridge with “Barry’s” in the background
North Long Branch
A Sentimental Racetrack Journey

A Sentimental Racetrack Journey

Since the time I mucked my first stall fifty years ago on the “back side” (stable area) of Monmouth Park Racetrack in Oceanport, New Jersey I have had many racetrack related experiences.   Most good, some not so. Some of those I shared in a post called A New National Obsession in February of 2017.

But as a result,  this is one of my favorite times of the year, the first Saturday in May, the Kentucky Derby, the first of the Triple Crown races.

The sport of horse racing has had a rough winter with the deaths of 23 horses at Santa Anita Park in Southern California since December.   Efforts are being made to try to determine why that unfortunate situation occurred there.  Some blame the unusual amount of rain and unusually cold weather changing the racing surface.  I remember a similar situation at Monmouth Park in the 70’s when the entire racing surface was peeled off and replaced resolving the problem. But beyond correcting the racing surface, efforts are also being made industry wide to make changes to the sport that will make it safer for horses and riders nationally.

The following is a story I mentioned in  A New National Obsession, that I wrote in 2014, one of my favorite racing stories:

 2014 Horse of the Year

(Written May 23, 2014 and edited for this essay May 1, 2019)

 

Sir Sidney is the 5 year old son of Ghostzapper.

Ghostzapper was the Horse of the Year in 2004.

Sir Sidney, at five years old had only raced three times in his life and had never won a race. In fact it had been almost two years since Sir Sidney had even been entered in a race.

Sadly, Sir Sidney was five years old and still a “maiden”…horse racing’s term for a horse who has yet to cross the finish line first.

The third Saturday in May, famous for the second jewel of horse racing’s Triple Crown, The Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Racecourse in Baltimore, was to be Sir Sidney’s coming out party after a two year break.   He was entered in the 13th race, the last race of the day, the race after the big attraction. The race after the Preakness. It was the race that no came expecting to watch, the one that would be run while everyone was leaving the infield, the grandstands, the parking lot and sitting in traffic as they made  up “horse stories” to tell their friends about what could have been, what should have been… if only I had done this or bet that.

The thirteenth race, just the sound of it made you want to skip it, like not having a 13th floor in a high rise, or staying in bed on Friday the 13th.  But there was Sir Sidney, the only five year old in the company of nine three year olds reaching the starting gate for the first time in a long while.

The twelfth race, The Preakness, had proven to be just what everyone had expected or hoped for. California Chrome who had won the Kentucky Derby so convincingly didn’t disappoint in the Preakness. He won the race as the overall favorite, the crowd letting him go off at odds that would only return 50 cents on every dollar bet. Now, the only question that would remain, could California Chrome win the Belmont Stakes and be the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978?

While everyone was pondering that and heading home, the 13th race went off at 7:10 PM, Sir Sidney broke well from the gate and took the lead on the backstretch. However, going into the turn, three horses passed him and he fell back to fourth. Coming out of the turn and into the stretch Sir Sidney dug in deep as a hole opened up in the leaders and he charged into it. Now three horses head to head charging down the stretch! As they approached the finish line Sir Sidney pulled away and won by a length! The unlikely runner, the old guy in the race, never having won before, finally was a winner.

Thrilling stuff right?

C’mon I am getting goose bumps writing about it!

So right now you are wondering “okay Curt, where are you going with this? Why should I care?”

Well maybe you shouldn’t.

 

But let’s just say hypothetically you are me and a passionate fan of the sport, and an occasional recreational bettor. And let’s also imagine that you/me, like a lot of other people thought California Chrome was the best bet of the day, maybe the best bet of the year. And let’s just say you/me thought real long and hard about making that recreational wager on California Chrome to win, number 3 in the twelfth race, the 2014 Preakness Stakes.

But let’s go a step further in our hypothetical situation. Let’s just say that wager that you/me thought long and hard about, the one that you/me so carefully and confidently placed on number 3, California Chrome in the 12th race , and cheered loudly for as California Chrome crossed the finish line in spectacular fashion only to find out………

That your/my horse didn’t win, because, by mistake, the horse that you/I  bet was actually number 3 in the 13th race!

 

I think you/me are probably feeling pretty silly right now huh?

 

Silly that is…until about 7:12 pm.

 

I don’t know about you, but Sir Sidney, number 3 in the 13th race, would be my vote for 2014 Horse of the Year.

 

The End

 

That betting mistake, instead of returning $3.00 on my $2.00 California Chrome bet, returned $26.20 on the win by Sir Sidney.

The following year Kim and I would stand under an infield tent at Pimlico and watch American Pharoah win the Preakness in a downpour. Unlike California Chrome,  he would go on to win the Belmont and be the first Triple Crown winner since 1978.   Coincidentally, my horse of the year for 2014, Sir Sidney was on the card that day.  For sentimental reasons I felt inclined to place a bet on him.

And as a result of those sentimental reasons, I lost that bet.

Horse racing is a sentimental sport.  The beauty of the animal, the lure of a name, the story of the journey, the memory of a past encounter.  That is part of what draws me to it.

Sir Sidney is now ten years old and he is still racing. As a gelding there would be no cushy stud future for him.  In fact he ran this past Sunday at Philadelphia Park and finished fourth going a mile in a claiming race.  Going off at odds of 20 to 1, he earned his owner $1,400 and could at least say he beat the favorite, who finished last, earning him some track cred the next time he sees that guy out on the track exercising in the morning.

It’s hard to not get sentimental about Sir Sidney.

I feel reacquainted, he is part of my journey.

The old guy, in spite of the aches and pains of growing older, he is still out there working.  Having to prove himself to the young guys, doing something he still enjoys, having fun.

I get it.

I hope you take some time this Saturday and watch the Kentucky Derby. I hope you pay attention to the stories, enjoy the majestic beauty of these animals, get caught up in the drama.

I hope you find something sentimental in the experience that makes you want to return.

I hope you find your Sir Sidney.

 

 

 

 

A New National Obsession

A New National Obsession

February 2, 2012 was the birthday of American Pharoah, thoroughbred horse racing’s last Triple Crown winner. American Pharaoh, in 2015, was the first Triple Crown winner (i.e., winner of the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont Stakes) since Affirmed in 1978.  There have only been twelve Triple Crown winners since Sir Barton did it in 1919 and so, for a brief moment in time, the eyes of our country were once again watching a horse in a sport longing for the days when it truly did capture the attention of a nation.

In Laura Hillenbrand’s book Seabiscuit, An American Legend, Seabiscuit was described as “a runty little thing” whose favorite pastime was sleeping and was “inclined toward portliness.”

Yet Seabiscuit had already started fifty races, many more than horses now a days will run in a lifetime, before it is said, that he finally figured it out.

It was the mid to late 1930’s, a time when a country needed a good diversion.  Still in the grips of the Great Depression, Americans found something else to capture their attention.  It was funny looking Cinderella of a horse named Seabiscuit who became…a national obsession.

 

In the early 1960’s, with the ever looming threat of a nuclear bomb attack during the Cold War that was way beyond our ability to comprehend at such a young age, an entire elementary school of kids and their teachers made the trek from the thought to be not safe environment of our school building to the massive Monmouth Park Race course facility.  The large track building would provide us a better bomb shelter in the nuclear bomb attack we were practicing to survive.  At the end of the drill the fire department would use their fire trucks to help transport some of the kids back to the school.  I got my picture in the newspaper that day, as I was returned to Wolf Hill School on the back of a fire truck.

My grandparent’s house sat adjacent to the outer parking areas of the track in a part of Oceanport,  New Jersey called Hillcrest.  As kids we would go out into the parking lots and pick up the discarded racing programs that littered the ground and became absorbed in all the unusual horse names and the odd cryptic pencil markings of the patrons.

In spite of having grown up listening to the race announcer and the bugler from my back yard, the nuclear bomb drill that day was the only time I had ever entered the Monmouth Park Grandstand and Clubhouse facility until I got a job with the racetrack Fire Department at the age of 20.  For the next couple years and three racing seasons, I would ride an ambulance picking up jockeys and patrons track side or from the Firehouse in the stable area, referred to as the “backside.”

The thoroughbred horse racing industry is a world all its own and my brief experience of working at Monmouth Park was all it took, I was hooked.

From the rich and famous to the transient circus like nature of the backside community, the firehouse was the hub of activity for the stable area.  It had frequent visitors, including track owners and owners of the football Jets in Leon Hess and Sonny Werblin; famous trainers like Jimmy Jones of Calumet Farms and 1948 Triple Crown winner Citation fame; low level gangsters; and many, many other colorful characters.  One evening, I walked into the bowling alley located just outside the stable (backside) gate and found a kid I knew from high school on the floor with two bullet holes in his face, a victim of an argument over a game of pool with a member of the stable community, a reminder that in spite of the outward appearance of money and fortune, the racing industry had its dark side too.

I have stood in the paddock of Churchill Downs on Derby Day, cigar in hand; and on the infield rail next to the winners circle and watched Bob Baffert lend a helping lift to Victor Espinoza with “riders up” on American Pharoah just before the skies opened up with a torrential rain and American Pharoah romped to victory in his second leg of the Triple Crown.

I have learned a little about how to pour over figures and attempt to find the winner out of the Racing Form, racing’s past performances newspaper; and I have learned a lot about restraint and moderation after losing my entire paycheck one day while working at Monmouth.  I made twenty five dollars a day at the time and had to borrow money from my brother to pay my auto insurance bill.  That was good lesson and one never forgotten.

I have used Secretariat’s stretch run winning the Belmont by 31 lengths and never looking back to describe my marriage.

Secretariat winning the Belmont

My experience and the story of Sir Sidney, who was my vote for 2014 Horse of the Year, California Chrome, and the 2014 Preakness, still makes me laugh.

So you see for me, the whole industry is fascinating, very entertaining and has served as a good diversion for me in my life.

That is why this time of the year when all two year old horses become three year old horses regardless of their actual birth dates, and the prep races for the Triple Crown begin once again, I get excited.  Could this be the year that we may be watching the 13th Triple Crown winner develop before our eyes and grab the attention of not only the die-hards but the nation’s masses as well?

I understand the allure.  It’s like sitting in that movie theater, having the house lights go down and for the next couple of hours you are transported to another world.  I can recall some really bad days in my life when I found myself standing at the rail at Laurel or Monmouth just to escape.   I understand why in 1937 and 1938 a small, unlikely looking race horse could represent something positive in a time filled with hardship and draw a hundred thousand people to a race course with hundreds of thousands more glued to their radios.

On November 1, 1938 forty thousand people showed up to watch a match race between Seabiscuit and War Admiral.  The official capacity of Pimilico Racecourse at the time was 16,000.  War Admiral had won the Triple Crown the year before and was thought to be the best horse in the world.  Fans hung from the rafters as they watched Seabiscuit and War Admiral neck and neck at the turn coming into the stretch. The race would end with Seabiscuit crossing the finish line four lengths ahead.

Because in 1938 as Hillenbrand explains in the Preface of her book, though the country was still suffering from the effects of the Depression and the struggle for world power was beginning; the year’s number one newsmaker was not FDR, or Hitler, or Mussolini, or Lou Gehrig, or Clark Gable.  It was remarkably this horse, Seabiscuit, who had captured a nation.

Great stuff huh?

This year, as I break out the hawaiian shirt with the race horses on it and begin watching the prep races that will qualify the entrants with enough points to make it to the Kentucky Derby, I am hoping for another Seabiscuit, or another Secretariat, or another American Pharoah, or another War Admiral.

For I think that if there ever was time when we needed a new National Obsession I think now might be that time.  I would love to see a magnificent animal with a colorful cast of characters behind him or her,  capture the attention and imagination of a nation, populating my Facebook feed with dramatic stories of great efforts,  and hope,  and winning.

And having it all be positive and uplifting.

Yup, that is my hope.

“C’mon Seabiscuit!”

Seabiscuit coming  down the Pimlico stretch beating War Admiral