‘Red’ sparks memories and concerns for the future
by John Berry
Back over 40 years ago, I wrote an article about Robert Pasciuto and his family.
He was known as “Red” around the backstretch at Freehold Raceway and he, along with his wife, Helga, and daughter, Denise, were the guts and glory of the hard-working Pasciuto Stable.
He had the perfect stable for racing in New Jersey — especially south of the tough competition when The Meadowlands opened in 1976.
They worked from the darkness of the early morning hours before sunrise through the darkness of a late winter afternoon when the sun set as early as in the “4s”— like 4:30.
It’s not an easy life trying to keep your head above water in the business of harness racing.
There were some days during the winter months that, when Red came off the track after a training session, ice would be hanging from frozen tears and icicles would he hanging from his nose.
He once joked to me, “If I could’ve kept them cold enough and long enough, I could’ve used them as tinsel on the Christmas tree!”
Red did have a couple of “really good” horses during his career — Coonara Peak being the only one to secure success at The Meadowlands.
When Freehold Raceway announced their abrupt closing late last year, I thought about Red and his great family and their contributions to our sport, that surely didn’t make them rich.
Oh, they were rich in other ways… his daughter, Denise, won the New Jersey Equestrian Crown in 1986 — with yours truly as the emcee — and he and wife Helga’s pride on that evening was worth millions.
But, at the end of his long career in harness racing, his 270 lifetime wins accounted for just a bit over $500,000 in career earnings, with his best year being in the middle of his career — 1981 — when he won 44 races in 213 starts and $64,974 in purses.
That spawned this Mane Attraction that, in our sport, there are, literally, thousands of owners, trainers and drivers — and caretakers, too — who are participants in our sport, knowing they face 99-1 odds of turning a profit.
They are ignored, today, non-existent in headlines, especially as we go to the post in this peak of stakes season.
Yes, things are booming in the mid-western belt — Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana — and they are still OK in Pennsylvania and New York, and, of course, The Meadowlands.
The Woodbine Mohawk Park folk are doing well, but that can’t be counted in here because the Canadians come here for the riches, and we don’t go there.
The last time we checked, the total number of trainers and drivers participating in our sport, was about 3,500, give or take a length or two.
Thus far, the total purses in the U.S. totaled $227,165,743.
As of this Mane Attraction, the top 50 trainers had accrued about $73,000,000 in purses, over 32 per cent of the total.
The top 50 drivers had won 58 per cent of the purse money distributed, yes, roughly $133,800,000 of the $227,165,734 in purses through July 23.
Oh, there are plenty of others doing well these days but one can see that there may be as many as 2,500 (71.4 per cent) working as hard as they can to earn a viable living in a sport they truly love, and that number may be as high as 85.7 per cent.
Where does that leave the owners?
Kudos to the ones that have figured out the system, have the capital, and sustained the profits, to continue to be successful.
But what can be done to keep our sport viable to keep those above the financial waterline and, possibly, attract new blood to our industry?
The way things are right now, NOTHING!
We all know that there are a plethora — a lot — of horsemen and owners that had suffered for decades in Kentucky with small purses.
And when things changed, they were left unprotected in their quest for equality as the “big” names in racing moved their operations into the Bluegrass State.
They snapped up residences and farms to set up shop and had the funds to buy the best, leaving lifelong Kentuckians, who endured low purses for decades, to pick up the scraps left over.
Longtime horseman Trey Brinson is doing OK these days — not Ron Burke or Per Engblom numbers — but he doesn’t have to eat W.C. Sliders every night.
James Stiltner, Jack Gray, Randal Jerrell and Lee Eferstein are just shy of a handful of others that work as hard or, probably, harder since they have to do all the work themselves, with a few caretakers, of course.
There may be a light at the end of that tunnel, as it’s rumored that in this Red Mile meeting and the Corbin one to follow, to get preferred status the applicant must have had 51 per cent of their starts in Kentucky.
We’ll see.
In Ohio, at least one has to be a documented Ohioan — residence, driver’s license, etc. — to get preferred status.
In Indiana, it’s an open draw for everyone and anyone, except, of course, for their stake races and, remember, Kentucky may have siphoned away entries from Indiana, especially early in their meeting.
On the other side of the coin are some tracks that struggle to even survive in this hostile environment of competition for the gaming dollar.
At Cumberland Raceway, they featured six sire stakes with purses ranging from $11,254 to $11,978.
All six races were on the betting card with a total of 28 entries covering the events: fields of 4, 6, 5, 4, 4 and 5.
This writer worries about the safety of the hundreds of Dave Ingrahams that get in the bike every day risking life and limb for those that have $2 on a nose.
This writer worries about the many trainers like the Mike Murphys that do the same thing, but, many times, in the darkness of dawn, with a youngster just learning the ropes of trotting or pacing.
Is it all worth it? The answer, YES! Because it’s all they have known for all these decades to keep their head above financial water.
This writer worries about what has happened in Illinois… disastrous.
Yes, this all worries this writer…
One other note, this one on “high!”
If you’re interested in the very nostalgic aforementioned book about Freehold Raceway by Denise Chase, one can reach her at [email protected].
I loved it!
MAY THE HORSE BE WITH YOU
