Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, December 25, 1994 TAG: 9412270066
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: JAN VERTEFEUILLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHARLES TOWN, W.VA. LENGTH: Long
Mingo Sky is a chestnut mare with a serious pedigree - she's a granddaughter of Secretariat, arguably the world's greatest racehorse.
And she loves peppermint; she eats a pound a week, which Cross keeps in ample supply in his barn at Charles Town Races.
The future might not be so sweet for Mingo Sky and a thousand other horses at Charles Town. The shutdown of the 61-year-old race track this month could leave them homeless. An equal number of people already are jobless.
A breathing problem relegated Mingo Sky to Charles Town, the bottom of the barrel when it comes to horse racing. With small purses and slow horses, this was where the ``cheap horses'' ran and where folks who weren't Firestones could race thoroughbreds.
``The granddaughter of Secretariat,
and she's at Charles Town,'' Cross said. ``Can you believe that?''
Ten years ago, Charles Town was the most successful track in the country in terms of money coming in, but the glory days are over. Unable to compete with bigger tracks that had off-track betting, casinos, video lottery gaming machines and bigger purses, Charles Town went into decline. Saddled with mounting losses, its owners bet everything on a referendum last month that would have allowed video lottery at the track. They lost.
The owners said video lottery would have attracted more gamblers and saved the track, which will lose $1.4 million this year. Three other West Virginia counties have approved the lottery as an additional revenue source for their tracks. Voters in Jefferson County, however, rejected the Charles Town proposal by 535 votes.
The day after the referendum, the owners announced they were closing and putting out the "for sale" sign. The last race was run Dec. 12.
Charles Town Races ``has been here 60 years, through thick and thin, through the Depression,'' horseman Dick Watson said, ``and this causes it to go."
The closing means devastation for the town, whose fast-food strip, like its economy, is built around the race track. Charles Town Races was the biggest private employer in the county of 33,000.
It's also bad news for Virginians who went to the track to gamble and socialize. Roanoke-based bus companies said they took several charter trips a year to the track and it was a popular destination, especially during the summer. Now, the nearest track is in Maryland. Virginia's first race track - to be located in New Kent County - won't open for at least two years.
Christy Bradley, a 19-year-old waitress in the Turf Room restaurant just outside the track's entrance, has seen her tips drop by half since the track closed. Business is down 80 percent. Residents of Charles Town, population 3,000, support the restaurant, she said, but there isn't enough local business to keep the place open.
``A lot of people work in Washington and could care less about this town,'' she said of the county's large commuter population, which was blamed for the defeat of the lottery proposal. ``I'm afraid it's going to become a ghost town."
The peak money year for Charles Town Races was 1988, but the near-empty buildings look as if they saw their best days long ago.
The darkened clubhouse and grandstands are late '60s bowling-alley chic, smelling thickly of old plastic and old cigarettes.
Because of the sheer number of people being laid off, the unemployment office came to the track this month to register them all. Five workers from the unemployment office set up shop in the simulcast room, where bettors can watch out-of-town races live on television through the end of the month. The room, with a new mirrored ceiling and furnishings, had just been refurbished in anticipation of video lottery.
In addition to the 1,000 track employees thrown out of work, an equal number who work in nearby motels and restaurants soon will feel the pinch. The track has a study that shows its economic impact on Jefferson County is between $30 million and $60 million a year. A local state legislator estimated 3,500 jobs could be lost.
Yet many people here are optimistic - or in denial. They're confident a new owner will be found quickly and will reopen the track by early spring, even though the current owners say racing is unlikely in 1995. They didn't bid for 1995 racing dates, but the state racing commission probably would expedite the process if a buyer came in.
But horse owners are making plans to move. The Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association, an organization of trainers and owners, has come up with $2,500 a day to keep the track and stables open until Dec. 31 for housing and exercising. But they can't afford to keep the stables and track open after this month.
Winter is a bad time to be looking for stabling at other tracks, many of which are not open year-round. The approach of Christmas added to the stress and depression.
A lot of trainers express more concern for their horses' futures than their own.
``You can't take horses used to being in stables and kick them out in a field,'' said Tim Grams. He was the track's outrider, troubleshooting during races for riders and horses on the track. ``I think a lot of the horses they can't find homes for are going to auction."
That means they'll probably be sold to slaughterhouses.
Racing is the only job a lot of the track's trainers, hot walkers, jockeys and blacksmiths have ever known. ``What's sad is a lot of grooms in the barn are old. A lot don't have an education,'' Grams said. ``They just can't pick up and move as easy.''
Others, like Patricia Breeden, who worked in the track's kitchen for eight years, will wait it out, hoping Charles Town reopens soon.
``There's no jobs here,'' she said while cleaning kitchen appliances for the last time. ``Minimum wage, waitressing and all that - but with the race track closed, they're not going to need the extra help."
A poster taped over one of the closed windows in the track offers help: ``Feeling stressed with the uncertainty of it all? Call the counseling office. The Horsemen's Counseling Project."
The situation has created a buyers' market for horses. Donald and Arwilda Winters of Vinton have added three horses to their stable, moving them from the track's barns to private stables across the street. The Charles Town barns are run down, and the Winterses refuse to keep their horses there.
The track's closing doesn't affect the Winterses as much as some other owners. Their horses are good enough to run at other tracks, and they don't train them on the Charles Town track as most do. Instead, their horses swim laps in a small pool for exercise.
Their new horses begin racing at Penn National in Grantville, Pa., before New Year's. Don Winters said he expects one of them to be a regular winner.
For most owners, more money goes out than comes in. That's one of the racing industry's problems that go deeper than video lottery. Fewer people are breeding Thoroughbreds because fewer people can afford to own racehorses as a hobby, track spokesman Paul Espinosa said. Espinosa blames the 1986 federal tax reforms, which require owners to show a profit periodically in order to deduct their losses.
As a result, a lot of people got out of the business. The number of Thoroughbreds being raised in the United States dropped from 51,000 registered foals in 1988 to 34,000 this year.
``Back then, you'd get one owner with six horses, and now you've got one horse with six owners,'' trainer Lee Couchenour said. ``That's the difference."
The asking price for Charles Town Races is about $13 million, and another $5 million easily could be needed for renovations and repairs. D. Keith Wagner, principal owner and president of the track, said the 12 owners hope to ``find somebody who thinks they can do a better job than we did.''
But he says, ``I think without some additional form of revenue that it's very, very difficult to run this facility."
Many of the trainers, employees and horse owners believe new owners would do a better job. The current management does not get good grades from people who worked around the track.
``Since 1988, there's been a decline in the mutuel handle [the total amount bet], so to blame the demise of it on video lottery is not true,'' said Dick Watson, a trainer and board member of the Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association. ``It's very easy to place blame ... but it's been a longtime decline."
To Tom Merritt, executive director of Thoroughbred Racing Communications, video lottery takes the emphasis off horse racing. The extra income from the video gambling is more likely to prop up a shaky business than revitalize it, he said.
Charles Town's owners had a reputation for poor decision-making and crying wolf - even their own public relations man volunteers that - and county residents apparently didn't believe that defeating video lottery would kill the track. Residents of Charles Town also blame the other sections of the county that are less dependent on the track, such as historic Shepherdstown and Harpers Ferry, with their tourism and large numbers of Washington commuters. The lottery also faced organized opposition from community leaders and law enforcement, who were concerned that it would introduce vice and increase crime in Jefferson County.
Some residents still think the track will reopen soon. Espinosa, the track spokesman, disagrees, saying the owners would gain nothing by pretending to close. And the West Virginia legislature already gave the four counties with racing the opportunity to help struggling tracks when they allowed a vote on video lottery.
Fred Buchholz, a bartender in nearby Harpers Ferry, moved from Baltimore in part to be near the track. He said the track made $20,000 a year from his gambling, but he doesn't plan to switch his allegiance to a new one.
``You have to get used to a new race track,'' he said. ``You don't know who the trainers are. You don't know who the jockeys are. You don't know who anyone is."
So, like a lot of other people whose lives or hobbies revolve around the Charles Town track, he'll wait out the closing and hope for a sugar daddy to come in and take over.
``There's no booster shot that is available now,'' said Couchenour, the trainer. ``What else can immediately help us, except a rich owner?''
Keywords:
HORSE RACING
by CNB