Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, September 9, 1994                   TAG: 9409090046
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B-9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BY JACK BOGACZYK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

HE'S NO SISSY IN THE WORLD OF SMALL-TIME HORSE RACING

W.C. Fields once said Lady Godiva put everything she had on a horse. Don Winters would understand that kind of equine gamble.

Winters, of Vinton, first went to the racetrack in 1945 in his native Pennsylvania. In 1972, he moved to the Roanoke Valley, from where seeing horse racing was a long-distance proposition in West Virginia's panhandle. Finally, in 1981 after he retired from United Virginia Bank, he bought Posiena, a 3-year-old filly, at Charles Town.

In the 13 years since Winters has bought and sold 81 horses, mostly through claiming races at Charles Town. His dream has been ``to run in a big race at a small track. I finally made it.''

In tonight's eighth race at Charles Town, the $100,000 guaranteed, 11/8-mile stakes of the West Virginia Breeders Classic includes Me No Sissy, a 6-year-old bay gelding Winters bought for $6,500 in March.

The race is open only to horses foaled in the Mountaineer State, and Me No Sissy will be running on his home track. Me No Sissy is 10-1 in the program, and will start from the No.5 post position in a 10-horse field with jockey William R. Lewis up. A taped telecast of the race will be aired Saturday at 6 p.m. on ESPN's ``Racing Across America.''

Winters owns three horses, including Speak the Blues, a 5-year-old gelding that has four wins at Penn National. Me No Sissy has won $59,722 in his career, but is winless in 12 starts this year, including seven since Winters claimed the horse. The bay gelding has finished no worse than fifth in those seven starts, and has cashed with a place and a show.

``This is like the miniature Kentucky Derby, for the poor people,'' Winters said. ``This is as big as it gets for a guy like me.''

Winters has raced horses in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Delaware and Maryland and just purchased a New York racing license. Several years back, he complained that The Daily Racing form couldn't be found in Roanoke, so he'd go to the Roanoke public library to read the racing results in The Washington Post.

That's how serious Winters is about his retirement vocation. He and his horse trainer, Kermit Elliott, own Kerm's Card Shop, a trading-card business, in Vinton.

``You make more money in cards than in horses,'' Winters said. ``But you never know what a horse is going to do.''

Keywords:
HORSE RACING