The Backside

The Backside

I enjoyed getting up every morning before the sun came up to the noise and smell that are so unique to the life of a “trackie”. Only there can you find the sweet mixture of sweat, leather, horses and hay.

Only there can you hear the old Negro spirituals as they are sung to calm nervous horses. The clanking of the blacksmiths’ anvil and the hammer. The “whoa backs” of the shed row.

Only there can you find the thrill and excitement of watching a horse that you have loved and cared for crossing thee finish line to be your first winner. The first of what you hope is many.

Only there will you hear the roar of the Sunday crowd as a long shot makes many of them big winners. And may equally big losers.

In the jockey’s room, you find much laughter and tears as the men and women who ride these great creatures nurse their aches and pain. And celebrate their victories. You’ll smell the pungent scent of the many thousands of great jockeys who have graced the halls. Jockeys like Will Shoemaker, Angel Cordero, Pat Day, Stevie Cauphin and others too numerous to name. You’ll swear that you can see the ghosts of the past as they answer to the call of “rider’s up”.

And when you go to the saddling paddock, tread softly and you’ll see the spectacular horses of the past. Man O’War, Black Gold, Spectacular Bid, Seattle Slew, John Henry and many others.

If you are very fortunate, you will have the knowledge, deep within your heart, that you have been there to experience all this and so much more that cannot even be explained. You know that you too have felt the tears in your eyes and the tugging at your heartstrings as you joined in with the thousands to sing that great anthem “My Old Kentucky Home”. And that, as you have sung those words, there that day, right before the greatest two minutes in horse racing history, you celebrated the thrill.

You will realize that it’s because of you and others like you that this day is even possible. You will know that you are very important part of history in the making.

For, you see, it’s all the little people, the hot walkers, the grooms, the pony riders, the exercise jockeys and the water boys that hold it all together. They are the very life’s blood of any racetrack. They are the ones who love their charges, who mother them, stay up; all night with them before a race, who care and tend them, often before they themselves are fed and cared for. It is because of people like this that days such as Derby Day are possible.

How do I know all this? I have been on of the chosen few, who are blessed with the knowledge that this is a truly wonderful, worthy occupation. I, too, have felt the joy and excitement of the races. I, too, have loved many a horse, some of them destined to be great, some of them not so great, but all holding a special place in my heart.

I, too, have known the friendship, love, respect, loyalty, and camaraderie that can only be found on the “backside”.

The courage and bravery that comes from a lifetime of falls, kicks and bites. And not all of them from horses.

No, you can’t understand it, unless you have lived it. And one can’t explain how or why it “gets into your blood”. At least not so that anyone else can understand or make sense of.

And you, as someone who loves a “trackie”, will just have to overlook the wistful expression that lights upon their face as they hear the call, “Boots and Saddles”. Bear with them if they ramble on about what they hold so dear. And above all, continue to love them, even tho, it seems that they prefer the companionship of four legged critters to that of the two-legged variety. You see, they know that God created them so that when he finally calls them home, he’ll be able to hold that great heavenly derby of Champions
gone on.