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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Exeter Times-Advocate, 1976-02-05, Page 140 NOT (ARTS IN B Vapour rising from the back of a spent Quick Dottie sums up the all she gave. Revington was parked on the outside when Taybro Tarka pulled info second slot. You have to race -them brave Leroy Revington shoots the bolt through the back gate of the horse trailer and Kevin Windsor is inside with Quick Dottie and I am outside camera in hand by the door of the pickup on my way to the races for the first time in my life. Leroy Revington Lucan, is probably the best "horse mechanic" in Ontario, maybe all Canada, though he'd never say such a thing. Leroy has raced horses for 20 years, has raised and trained them almost as long, and is a major celebrity at the Western Fair Raceway, London, Ontario. Kevin Windsor is Leroy's helper, Someday he'll drive in the big-time too, jockeying standard bred racers worth thousands of dollars around half-mile tracks with dollar signs and glory in his eyes. For the present Kevin just listens carefully to Leroy and races ponies, serving his "ap- prenticeship." Leroy has served too, and showed "horse sense" early, when he took a golden palomino, "Golden Promise", to the grand champion's circle at the Royal Winter Fair, Toronto, in November 1959. "Golden Promise" proved Leroy had the "midas touch" where palominos are concerned. Judges hold a gold coin to the horse's hide. The closer the hair matches the colour of the coin the better it is. Golden Promise won the yearling class, beat the two and three year olds and went on to place second as "reserved" champion against his own sire, Max's Golden Strutter. "I fitted him myself", Leroy says. "It was the first big show I was ever in. It was a lot of work to get him in shape and teach him manners. To see him go to the top made me feel pretty good." Leroy was 20 at the time. Showing horses taught Leroy the fine points of conformation, and learning that, he soon graduated to racing, with a trotter he bought from Clint Hodgins, Clandeboye , named "Moko Lookout." But all this was a decade ago; and today, January 31, 1976; the 13th day of the Western Turf and Driving Club; it's pacers, not trotters, that hold Leroy's at- tention. In particular it's Quick Dottie. "horse mechanic" "There's lots of horses that sit in your mind," Leroy says, silently remembering "bad actors, kickers and biters" sent to him by money people like Bill Wellwood, Toronto, who had a stallion called "Bronze Whaler", full of class but too sulky in a record of 12 wins in 39 starts for $12,000 before she foundered. "Foundered" means Dottie got too much cold water on her left fore foot causing it to fall off. They put a plastic foot on her so she could run again. It's held in place by two nails and except for days when the track is frozen hard and the pain stings her, Dottie is a winner, Last Monday she won a claimer race in 2:10:3. Today, Saturday, in the seventh Exactor race, Leroy is hoping Dottie will do it again, run a straight mile As we drive down No. 4 hwy. from Lucan towards London, with Kevin in the trailer to calm Dottie when she gets irritable k Dottie doesn't travel gracefully in a horse trailer); I am won- dering what Leroy's wife Dorothy meant when she said to him, as he walked out the door of their large white brick house on Lucan's Main St., "Just run a straight mile in two and a tenth . . . "She meant give Dottie a chance to go and we'll be in the money," Leroy says. We both feel a jolt. Dottie has kicked the trailer. "She's not happy back there, that lit- tle mare," Leroy says. Then he tells me about expenses. "You can figure on it costing you $3,500 to hold a horse for a year," he explains. "That doesn't include the price you paid for the horse, just the care and equip- ment. A racing-bike alone costs anywhere between $500 and $1,000. "You don't show a profit until you win back expenses and if you don't train the horseyourself,like I do; if you're paying someone to get the horse ready for the races, you're going to put out $7-8,000." We near the entrance to the Western Fair Raceway. Leroy explains Dottie's race is a "claimer". Dottie will compete with a price on her head. Because Dottie won her last race, Leroy "claims" she is worth $6,000. By entering her in a "claimer" she is for sale, and anyone who wants her, and goes through the proper channels, can buy her once the race is over. "Say you want Dottie for breeding," Leroy explains. "If you deposit cash or cheque with the judges and you're a member of the racing association, Dottie's yours as soon as she crosses the finish line. I don't have anything to say about it. All I get is the halter and purse money if Dottie wins. A claimer is a good way to prove how much your horse is worth, but it's also a way to lose her." Of course there's the other side of the coin. "Now if she falls during the race and you've claimed her, she's still your and Kevin horse, you're still out $6,000, you even pay to have her put away," Leroy explains. He recalls the old days when things got "nervy" between a claimer and an owner who didn't want to let go. "Some guys would come back to the stable and claim the horse and the owner wouldn't even give him the halter to lead the animal away. I've even heard of them trying to take the shoes off." We are in the racegrounds now and things start to move fast, We stop the truck outside the en- trance to the grandstand. People are moving through the doors, paying a $1.50 entrance fee and collecting their race programs that list all the competing horses and drivers according to past records and best performances. An armoured car pulls up just as we get out of the pickup. Quick Dottie kicks again. Leroy and I are standing in front of the entrance when a wizened old guy approaches through the cold, biting air and says, "Hey Leroy, you got some horse there." Leroy is Irish and it shows in his eyes. He combs his black hair with his fingers and says, "She'll finish in the top three or I'll be disappointed." The door of the armoured car opens and two big attendants carrying dull White sacks of money step out looking grim with holstered guns flapping against their thighs. "Hey, you need help carrying that," Leroy asks. They don't react, but shoulder through the crowd and disappear through the aluminum and glass doors and disappear in the semi- darkness beyond. Leroy takes me to the pay wicket by the turnstiles and buys me a program. Then he calls to a guy as big as a bear who goes by the name of "Red" and was christened John Lehman; head of security and posted in the in- formation office to the right of the pay boothes. "This is Gord Bagley," Leroy says. "He's never been to the races before and he wants to see what goes on." Red smiles good naturedly and I wonder what he really thinks because he's busy as hell in the information office with the phone ringing every five seconds. But he tells Leroy everything is all right, and he'll do his best for me. There's a little old guy with a hand counter keeping track of the crowds going through the turn- stiles. Red clears it for me to get into the stands. But first Leroy and I take Dottie over to the preparation barns where 511 horses are permanently stabled. We pass a line of house trailers. Just before the guard station, where you have to check in to prove you have legitimate papers and horses to enter the compound; Leroy points to one of the trailers and says, "that fellow runs a tack shop." There are sulkies helter skelter in front of the trailer. "These guys in the trailers live here eight months of the year." Leroy says. "It's a separate life." Leroy himself used to live here, rising at six in the morning to work the horses. Then he would sleep all afternoon, get up at 5:00 p.m. for the evening races, take his horse through it's paces, party later with some of the other drivers, a card game, a few drinks, then asleep and doing it all over again tomorrow. "It gets to be —" "Like a movie," I interject. "Yes, and people, they get to know you, they get to expect things of you . . ," "To win," I am thinking, and winning is something Leroy is not unknown for. Leroy was racing and winning a lot two Septembers ago, before the accident in Clinton. His horse went down and threw him out of the sulky and a horse behind ran over his legs. In the back of Leroy's truck there's a set of' rusty barbells. "The weights are for me," he replies "I have to do exercises for my legs . ." While the security guard checks Leroy's papers, a white- haired fellow with a touch of rogue to him, approaches our truck gazing intently at a racing form. With the window down you notice the music, It's piped into the compound from somewhere, hovers cheerfully in the frigid air. He looks up and says hello to Leroy. Leroy brings this man over to myself and says, "Gord, this Harry Eisen." "Gord's at the races for the first time," Leroy says. He turns to me. "If you want to know anything, ask Harry, he's the best." Harry covers the races for the London Free Press. He's a busy man today but he tells me to find him if I get turned around, the labyrinth Kevin and Leroy unload Dottie, Kevin says he was freezing back there. He and Leroy take Dottie into the preparation barns and put the harness on her. Dottie will have two warmup turns around the track before she takes her "last mile" following the fourth race. For the next two races she'll wait in the Paddock compound with Leroy. It will be her turn in the seventh to show class against the handicap of a plastic foot. I've been absorbed by the betting crowd and shoved in the right direction by "Red" Leh- man. He sends me upstairs with Terry Provost, 27 months racing secretary at the Fair, who ushers me into the back rooms behind the selling and cashier's boothes on the second floor. As we enter I look over my shoulder and see the "Paddock Lounge" where people buy drinks and bet on horses without ever seeing the races live. The bar's equipped with videoscreen. Then Terry and I are in the back room bank area. "This is where the money is," he says. "I don't see any money." "The money hasn't started to flow," he says, "The cashiers have it." `There's an open and very empty vault right in front of me. "Can I take a picture of the vault," I ask. The boss of the computer room where the odds are set and the money flow is compared to the same day last year, passes by as I ask this. "I rather you didn't," he says. So we enter the computer room where machines tick and hum and people watch numbers as if we're at Cape Kennedy during a count down. "What are we up against," Terry says. "208", someone says. Terry whistles and the boss says "no problem." "There was $208,000 passed through here this time last year," Terry explains. (It turns out the computer chief was right — it will be recorded in Harry Eisen's Monday story that 3,666 people wagered $215,351 this Saturday, setting a record for the current year.) Terry and I duck out and up some back stairs to the third floor and enter the "Top of the Fair"; a dining lounge full of tables on coasters loaded down with iced wine and pushed by waitresses in rea uniforms briskly over green carpeting. They serve a vocal crowd of racing enthusiasts; some well-dressed, 'others not so fancy, who probably earned a seat here by having the foresight to make a reservation. As we walk towards yet another set of stairs a tall aristocrat in a grey suit nods hello to Terry and gives me the once over. "Who was that?" I ask. "That, my friend was, E.D. McGuGan, Terry says, McGuGan is the prime mover, the general manager of the Western Fair Raceway and all it's variables. Then we are up another flight of black painted iron stairs and literally on top of the fair. Terry leads the way across the board- walk that protects the tarred roof. Against a bitter wind with London spread out around us, like "Eagle" landing to the tune of computers making odds; we enter the judges' both, If computers are the heart of big-time racing (money); then the judges' room is the brain (who gets the money). There's a face to the voice that says, "And here they are" as the horses cross the finish line. The face belongs to Bob Minler, the announcer, In a room next to him there's RCMP officer Mark Tinlin who shuts off the betting machines as soon as the horses cross the starting line. And there's Alan McManus, presiding judge, Bill Lang, Commission judge, and Dr, Russell Furness, invited as associate judge because of his acknowledged background in racing. As judges they officially proclaim the winners and answer questions of fact, or rule on in- fractions that arise out of races they oversee. "Who are you representing," Lang says. "The Times Advocate," I say. "Exeter." "Oh yes-" "I came down here today with Leroy Revington." "Well that's the man to talk to," someone says. "Driver of "Fireside Brandy" and still holding the world track record for a yearling trotter on a half-mile track," Terry Provost says in a W.C. Fields accent. (Fireside Brandy ran the mile in 2:22:1, Octo, 11, 1969.) While we talk Ron Taylor, a London photographer who has operated the photo-finish cameras at the Fair since it started 15 years ago, enters the judges' booth. We are introduced. Terry says he'll stay with the judges. Ron and I head down below to see the photo-finish cameras. There are two of them. No. 1 camera covers three- quarters of the track at the wire. No. 2 covers the entire track as "back-up". "Before they announce the winner they wait for the photo- finish to be flashed upstairs on this," Ron says, pointing to a projector that is aimed upwards through a hole towards the judges' booth immediately above us. "That's why the announcer says, And here they are , . „" I reply. The third race is just over.Ron takes the film from the number one camera, processes it for 10 seconds and places it in the projector. The image flashes upstairs and moments later announcer Minler booms out the winners' names. In the "breathing space" after the fourth race Ron takes me upstairs again to the video tape room. Quick Dottie is out on the track for the "last mile", Three videotape cameras, recording machines, and bank of television screens combine to monitor the action. Herb Blythe, London, does the camera switching and video recording. There is a pan video camera (like a television camera) here and two co- ordinates in towers located at each end of the track. Peter Buggey (pronounced (Budgie") operates the pan camera here in the video-tape room, He also selects the music I heard when I met Harry Eisen, the music that filters throughout the fairgrounds between races, and has just now stopped. "We take the music off three minutes before starting time," Peter says, "90 percent of the betting takes place in the last three minutes." Shortly, Harry plays a recording of a bugle to call the horses in the fifth race to the starting line, "I also play the bugle," Harry says wryly. paddock lounge vs paddock compound on the second floor in the "Paddock Lounge" he is drinking his beer and watching Harry's videotape. He's boxing an exactor and he's going to win $24.60 on Alex Choice and Mr. Perfection. " A guy could stay here all afternoon and bet without ever going outside," I say to him sipping a beer to get the flavour, "Sure," it's okay," he says. "It beats sitting in front of a TV at home, or spending the afternoon in the pub." The videoscreen comes on and he's watching all the way down to the wire, cool as the sweat on his beer bottle. We talk for a few minutes. The waitresses discuss their boyfirends, The bartender passes me my second and last one. The winner goes out to bet again and be back in position right under Harry's videoscreen for the next race and I'm running for the escalator and the Paddock compound, where Quick Dottie is waiting it out with Leroy and Kevin, The fifth race is on while I'm trying to get a word in edgewise to "Red" at the information booth, first floor, who is still picking up the phone every time he puts it down. I missed his name, but an associate takes over and leads me through the foyer and outside across the laneway to the pad- dock entrance. The horses wait in stalls, each RCMP officer Tindall stall for a specific race. We pass two horses the Dept. of Agriculture reps are testing to make sure they weren't doped. After each race the Dept. takes the winner and a horse selected at random to test their saliva and urine. Any irregularities and things get heavy. "Can you give a horse a drug the ag. rep. couldn't detect," I ask my guide. "I'd have to say no," he says. "The best way is a blood test. They do that in some states. But the system the agriculture department uses is pretty thorough." The fifth race is over and the sixth is about to go when I find Quick Dottie. Leroy is off talking to the paddock judge and Kevin. isn't around either, Dottie has a warmer blanket over her. She's so hot vapour rises from her eyes. She looks bizarre, like an animal grafted to a the paddock door and machine. "I'm , across the track just after the field in the sixth race go into the first turn. I thread my way back to the infield where it meets the track at the wire and get ready to take Dottie's picture next race. parked and stung The music is playing again, The sixth is over and the crowd along the rail and in the open air stands has calmed down. Above them, looking through the glass, .the "top of the fair" crowd sip chilled wine and wait for the seventh to begin,Above them the judges relax a bit. The Exactor winner in the Paddock Lounge places his bet and heads back to the bar for another beer and cigarette, Quick Dottie is in the traces. Announcer Minter saps 10 minutes, Ron Taylor has re-set his cameras for the photofinish. The waitresses serving beer are discussing their boyfriends, Somewhere a bettor yawns, Harry Eisen is taking care of business. Red is trying to get off the phone.Leroy Revington is on the track soft parading Dottie as Harry Buggey shuts off the music that could be a theme from the Godfather, The bugle sounds. The race finished with the sound of the long black whip burning along a pacer's side. You could feel the snap and power of muscle over the distance as they careened out of the last corner into home stretch. The crowd is "go on, go on", down at you in waves and the adrenalin and the pumping blood and the explosions of breath from their nostrils makes everybody go everything together and down there at the bizarre Dottie gut level you're thinking "money". The camera is in your hand when they hit the finish line and then everything pops, like a weasel , . . that's the way the money goes Dottie got parked on the outside and burned out when Leroy decided to tail Taybro Tarka, owned by Robert Taylor. Tarka is progeny of Tarport Arnie, a stallion Leroy owns and stands in Windsor. When Taylor moved, Leroy thought Tarka would pace to number one and Quick Dottie would carry; but Taylor dropped into number two slot leaving Dottie outside and running a long mile on a hard frozen track. Her plastic foot was stinging her and she was transferring some of the work to her hind quarters. That meant she wasn't working smoothly, wasn't feeling good, couldn't see winning (racehorses with class know when they can win) and gave up. Leroy says it wasn't Dottie's fault, There was no point in "flogging a dead horse"; so he went "no" on the whip and Dottie dropped back to finish the race in sixth, Taylor's Tarka stayed in second place behind Ron Tweedle's Just B. Gun who won in 2:10:2, one-fifth better than Quick Dottie's winning time of 2:10:3, the Monday before. Dottie's Saturday was over, An hour and a half later, after Kevin had washed Dottie down and walked two sweats off her; we are driving back to Lucan. Leroy, Kevin, and I are in the truck. Dottie is in the trailer too tired to kick, Leroy is talking. "I'm not upset about losing that race today," he says. "There's always another one." "They really use that whip on them," I say. "Don't racehorses like to win?" If you have a horse with class he wants to win," Leroy says. tired bettor "You take him out and let him know you want him to pace and he'll pace if he's feeling good. "But they know where the finish line is and they'll start to back off a little if yoo don't watch close." Leroy pauses, "The whip keeps them straight, They like to run, but you have to race them brave." Story and photos by Gordon Bagley Leroy , Dottie sulky to perform. Leroy's still working with Whaler . . . The walking wounded also come under Leroy's tutelage, and he gives the impression they are his favourites. There's the example of Midge Diamond. "She had a hip-down," Leroy explains, meaning Diamond smashed into something and dislocated her hip, making it painful for her to run. Leroy helped her by building up the foot below the damaged hip with layers of leather. Diamond soon paced the corners better and won $95,000 by the time she retired at 14, "She was one of my favourites because she won so many in- vitationals," Leroy says. Harness racing is divided into four categories — invitational, preferred, claimer, and con- ditional. Invitational is the top category. To have your horse compete there, is like being in- vited to an upper upper class party. To win an invitational with a horse like Diamond is akin to attending that high class party in a patched tuxedo and be com- plimented for your style. But Diamond is in the past and Leroy's friends tell you he sells most horses once they're run- ning, It's "fixing" he's interested in, and that's why today, it's Quick Dottie, Dottie is a nine year old racehorse with a plastic foot. Leroy bought her at the Liberty Bell Sales auction in Philadelphia where 500 race horses are often sold in two days. Leroy paid $3,800 for Dade, who had a