by Frank Cotolo

Orange. That is the only color that comes to mind when I think about harness racing at Hollywood Park. The facade was orange and the grandstand food court molding was orange and when the sun set, all of the orange was burned into your eyes to the point where anything you looked at included a twinge of orange. By dark it was an orange island floating in the Pacific and it was populated by bettors and standardbred horsemen.

The box-seat area was sprinkled with trainers and owners and their family members. And just a few bettors who were not owners or trainers or their family members. And all of their faces were faintly orange. Al Bahouth, Sr. had a four-seat box and one night he invited me to sit with him and be interviewed.

Bahouth was retired by 1978. During his active career he was never the personality a horse racing journalist pursued; even those in the West Coast’s low-profile category of standardbred journalist. Bahouth was loaded with tales about people and places and things concerning the Pacific population of harness horsemen. He knew them all from the era when standardbred racing in California made horse racing history. And he told me so.

“Aside from driving titles in New York,” he said, “Jimmy Cruise was leading driver at Santa Anita in 1948 and 1963. And me? I did not know harness racing ever took place at Santa Anita.

“Did I know Louis Rapone? No way. He was the leading West Coast driver in 1964 and known for his champion pacer Pole Adios.

“You should know Eddie Wheeler. He was a Brooklyn boy like you. In ‘58 he was the top driver at Hollywood.”

“Yes,” I said, “I know the name Howard Beissinger. Hollywood?”

“In ‘57. Top guy here,” Bahouth said. “Jim Dennis you must know from here.”

“I’m new to the West Coast,” I said, “but I saw his name in some programs.”

“Good boy,” Bahouth said.

I was surprised his tone was cleverly amusing. This bonded us because I was a flippant journalist. He enjoyed the fact that I was a professional creative writer first and a horse racing journalist last.

“Sounds like the right order,” he said.

“I got one,” I said. “Joe O’Brien.”

“You know the name is all.”

So, he filled me in on O’Brien arriving at Del Mar — Del Mar harness, wow — in ‘47 and driving for Castleton Farms’ Pacific outpost he wins the $50,000 Golden West Pace with Indian Land.

“The orange paint was not cracking back then,” I said.

“Place needs an overhaul,” Bahouth said, “but like me, it ain’t getting one.”

The next time I sat in Bahouth’s box at Hollywood Park I did so after a scolding for not dropping by his box to hang out. I told him I liked to walk around during a race card and that I felt it would be invasive to drop in on him as if I were invited.

“Why on earth would you feel that way?” he said. “I never said don’t come back, or that you weren’t welcomed. You said it to yourself.”

He was correct. From that point on I spent a lot of race programs hanging out with my pal Bahouth in the chipped orange paint box-seat section where harness racing once made important statements in its history. And I like hanging with Bahouth because he was playful. He would get the attention of a friend and even family member by tossing pieces of crumpled paper at them.

“Watch me remind my ex-wife I am here,” Bahouth said just before catapulting a paper ball three rows down.

More than once I met him as I was entering the track for the night and he would flash his horseman’s pass and get me in for nothing. That was generous considering I did not have a press pass and admission was necessary after paying the parking fee.

“You know,” Bahouth said as we walked to his box one evening, “the parking lot here is one of the safest in North America.”

Bahouth introduced me to every person that came by the box, as well as he told me countless things about the people and practices of the backstretch; most of which I never asked. He talked off the record a lot but I did not use any of those narratives because I knew, though they were based upon truth, they were surely embellished.

When the harness meet went south to Los Alamitos I never asked if I could join Bahouth at his box. I simply parked myself there knowing I was always welcome.

Time and lifestyles separated us and I was sorry I did not find out about his death until long after it occurred because I would have gone to the funeral to show my respect for a strong and wise man.