BIG CHANGES... better times (Part 104g)

The main reason for going to North Carolina was to, hopefully, reconnect with some of the people that I’d gotten to know when I was working with the race horses there. I was excited when I got up looking forward to seeing them. Elle was also excited looking forward to seeing our former neighbors, Maggie and Roy, from when we lived on the grounds of the racetrack. They’d kept up for a few years with Christmas cards but there was no real ”news“. The lady had been like a surrogate mother to Elle, helping Elle adapt to her new life as a ”racing widow“. As usual with kids it took longer than I’d wanted to get everybody ready to go. It was mid morning when we arrived at the track.

Pulling onto the grounds the first thing I noticed that the doors to Barn 1 were closed. Going back to my first visit to the track as a pre-teen the information center was the ”Cook House“, the name given to the little restaurant that served the stable hands at the track. I stopped and went in fully expecting to see the bustling business that I remembered from the past. What I saw was an old man asleep in the corner under a black and white TV with a rolling picture and another man sitting at the counter reading a newspaper. He was wearing a white uniform so I took him to be the cook. In the past, track management had provided a pamphlet with a roster of the trainers and their horses and made it available at the Cook House. I asked for one and all I got was a blank stare from the guy in the uniform. I tried to explain but he was of no help. Then I asked about some of the people I had come to see. It was the same story... no help. Frustrated I decided to take a slow drive through the grounds.

My memory is that about 1/3 of the barns had their doors shut with no signs of activity. At mid morning there should’ve been a constant parade of horses coming and going to the track for their training. I stopped at a barn that had been occupied by a successful trainer the Winter that I had spent there. I asked a stable hand if the trainer was around and was told that he no longer spent the Winter months there. I asked who the trainer was who occupied the barn and didn’t recognize the name. I was even more puzzled than before. I expected to find some changes in the five years since I’d been there but was finding way more.

Elle was anxious to find our former neighbors and when we got to the area where the mobile homes were parked there was another shock. There were only three. The year we were there there were at least ten. However, a sign on the front of one exhibited the name we were looking for. I went to the door and knocked. I almost didn’t recognize the woman who answered. She’d aged a lot in those five years. She definitely didn’t recognize me and even after I told her my name she hesitated. When I mentioned Elle’s name her face lit up with a big smile. She peeked behind me and saw Elle in the station wagon holding the baby and then pushed past me to get to her. After hugs and introductions we were ushered into the unit.

The next surprise came when I asked about her husband, Roy. He’d been the assistant trainer for his son’s very successful stable for, in my mind, forever. As soon as I asked a frown came to her face. Very somberly she pointed to the big cement barn exactly opposite the mobile home and told me he was over there. That barn had been occupied by trainer that didn’t have the greatest reputation for the way he treated his help or his horses but always had a large stable. It had always been a question as to how he managed to have so many horses to train with that kind of reputation. I asked if it was the same trainer occupying the barn and she slowly nodded her head, affirmatively. At that point I had to ask about the son. Still with a frown she told us how he’d lost most of his good race horses to an unscrupulous trainer. I asked who but didn’t recognize the name. She went on to say he was in Florida racing at a new track down there. That prompted me to ask about what appeared to be empty barns scattered around the grounds. The answer to that was that more states were offering racing the whole year round so taking a few months off for Winter training had fallen out of favor. I asked about some of the people I’d remembered from my days there and she seemed to know where they were located but none were at the track.

I left her and Elle and walked across to the cement barn where there certainly was a lot of activity. Horses regularly coming and going in and out the door. Roy drove up with one just as I reached the entryway. He, like his wife, didn’t recognize me either. After a brief reintroduction he grabbed my hand and have it a good shake. One thing I did remember about Roy was that right from the time I’d first met him he looked older than his age. At this point in time he looked to be about 75 and I think he was in his mid 60's. We didn’t get to talk much before a groom handed him the reins for another horse and he was on his way out the door. Upon his return he asked if I wanted to go on a training trip with him. I laughed when I told him that my days behind a horse were long gone... and within seconds so was he... back out the door.

It was obvious that he was very busy and really not all that interested in talking to me. I wondered where the ”big man“, his boss, was as I saw no sign of him. I was glad because I really didn’t want to see him as I had no respect for him at all. After he made a few more trips to the track and back I told Roy that we had to be going even though it was a lie. It was more that I was so disappointed/depressed with what I’d found or, realistically, hadn’t found, that I wanted to leave. I’d driven all this way and only found two people that I’d hoped to see and one was too busy to spend any time with me.

To be continued...