Oregon Horse Racing, the Sport for Everyone
By Suzy McMinn
Staff Writer
For sheer excitement, thrills, spills and danger, few other sports compare to horse racing. This is a sport featuring fast horses, money wagering and audience enthusiasm. It is also an incredible boost to the local economy According to track officials, the Grants Pass racing meet brings in 3.4 million to local economy.
The race horses are fit and ready for the upcoming challenge, the chance to vie with other horses, proving who the best athlete is on that given day. The horses’ incredible burst of speed out of the starting gate kicks the audience off its feet, yelling and screaming for their favorite. The hammering of hooves down the track drives the spectators into a frenzy, trying to lift their wagering pick into first place. Audience participation at the Oregon race tracks involves all ages, from babies to eighties. Betting which horse will win is a popular part of the races, a chance to win untold riches, just like buying a lottery ticket but with much better odds of winning. The audience usually only gets to know the horse racing exhilaration, the one-minute view of thousands of pounds of horse flesh striving for the winner’s circle, not the hard work and long hours it takes to prepare a horse to run for their enjoyment.
Grants Pass morning track is busier than a freeway at rush hour with hot-blooded horses strutting their stuff. Skinny, wiry, workout riders riding an unpredictable, excited bundle of exposed nerves, gallop their horses to the left; pony girls on calm, well-broke horses lead their charges to the right.
Race horses, on the end of the lead ropes, challenge the slow works but for the pony girl and horse it is just business as usual holding the young horses who are busy rearing, plunging, spooking and shying like jumping beans. Trainers and track officials stand on the track, keeping an eye on their equine protégées.
Horse racing has been called the sport of kings. In Grants Pass, Oregon, the back of the track is where the real race track experience takes place, where the horses rule. This is the place where horse lovers slave to make their horses safe, comfortable and ready to run. Who else, other than a horse lover, would get up early, every morning, to clean stalls, feed and water the horses, get them ready to work and afterwards bathe them, put them on the hot walker and then, make these horses comfortable until race time. Benji Utley and his assistant, Ashley Stoddard, both from Lebanon, Oregon, devote all their time to the comfort and condition of the horses in their care. This is a case where the well-being and demands of the animal supersedes human comfort. Utley ensures that the horses in his training are ready to perform their best when they get to the races.
Mary Boyle and her husband, Harvey, are hooked on horses. “In 2002, I purchased my first Quarter Horse racer and in its first race, the horse won first and from then on, it was horses, horses, horses,” shared Mary, a retired school principal. At first Mary bombarded her trainers with questions, “Why do you do this, what happens when …, where do we go, etc.?” After driving her trainers batty, Mary decided to train her own horses. She breeds her own race horses, trains them, and then takes them to the track.
“The Don Jackson Racing Facility in Grants Pass has the best racing surface in the Northwest,” said Mary. “We try to entice trainers and owners to race here. In addition to the purses and recognition, we offer first place winners a T-shirt with ‘Racing on the Rogue - My Horse was a Winner’ so they can wear their bragging rights. I won one.” Dryly, with a grin, Benji Utley comments, “I’ve won five.” Sally Reid, who also raises, trains and races her Oregon-bred horses started with showing hunter/jumpers, then rode in barrel racing. Sally is a retired College Counselor from Boise, Idaho who taught school counselors. “I had the horse bug, I took care of my horses in the mornings before school started, worked all day and then went back to care for them in the evenings,” said Sally. She picked Grants Pass to breed, train and race her horses because of the track’s quality. “I don’t care where I live as long as I’m racing,” said Sally. “Why do I love horses so much?” said Sally, “as a mother, I was never enough. I always could have done more. As a wife, I was never enough. I could have done more. With horses, I’m enough. I’m enough.” This behind-the-scene, close-knit community of owners, trainers, jockeys, and stable help caring for their race horses is a testimony to their common love of horses and the race track life. They live the wandering, traveling life of running their race horses. Photo credit: Grants Pass Tourism
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