"Pimlico from the Heart" (2026)

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:12]Journalism is trying to box on through very tight still IS JOURNALISM. GOSSKERS COME AWAY WITH A LEAD. A lot of bumping going on as Clever again steadied and shuffle back. Journalism shifted in.

[00:00:24]Here's Sandman ON THE OUTSIDE TRYING TO RUN ON. JOURNALISM HAS RECOVERED.

[00:00:30]JOURNALISM HAS RECOVERED AND IS COMING.

[00:00:33]JOURNALISM.

[00:00:35]JOURNALISM. A SENSATIONAL RUN.

[00:00:42]>> You know, forever.

[00:00:43]>> Just picture Cecil B. Deill doing the greatest show on earth on an iPhone, >> right? Yeah. So, hey, you know what?

[00:00:52]We're It's you know the aesthetic here cannot be beat. So Bill's got this and there's just a guy standing up next to him doing this >> doing this.

[00:01:03]>> Did Thank you for your time.

[00:01:05]>> No. Did we?

[00:01:06]>> Yes, you did.

[00:01:07]>> Yes. Thank you. This >> this is not it's still got this is this is a this is a um a joy. I do I I know.

[00:01:17]I mean, I do I do appreciate the ch, you know, John like he to he didn't have to >> it took a little bit of uh cajoling, but it was it was a done deal when he said when when it was like, you know, I can do this on Friday cuz I have some issues on over the weekend.

[00:01:36]>> Anyway, someone say to me, I can't remember what it was about. They go, "Oh, it was buyer. We went out to dinner and he and I go, you buying this dinner?" He goes, "As long as you keep playing the cancer card, John, there you Oh, Hey, I'm longtime Maryland racing writer John Shinman and this is longer time Maryland racing writer Vinnie Peron. And we're out here at Pimlo on opening day of the final meet of this grand edifice that we've loved for so long, Pimlo, which is going to be demolished in June.

[00:02:44]And uh if all things go well, Vin, um we're going to get a new racetrack here.

[00:02:50]But we've been around a long time. I've been coming to this track easily twothirds of my life. And uh it's going to be a hard goodbye. Are you are you suggesting there's going to be a resurrection here? There's a planned resurrection? Because I I have to tell you, my first life was better than my second. Okay. Now, just personally, all right, so you know, I I I'm a little skeptical, but but still optimistic.

[00:03:14]>> Well, I'm hoping they name it Fimico, like this track, and not like the Lazarus raceourse or something like that. We don't want to get too uh, you know, too biblical on that.

[00:03:24]>> We don't we don't know what's ahead of us, but we've got some good memories for what's behind us, right? I mean, you spent uh a lot of days.

[00:03:31]>> Yeah. a tremendous amount of stories uh that are locked inside of me that I think we can maybe tease out with a couple of stiff bourbons. But uh >> well, let's get the key and unlock some.

[00:03:44]>> So, let's let's walk around the track a little bit and uh and uh I don't know, kick it around.

[00:03:50]>> We can do that.

[00:03:50]>> You got to say goodbye. I got to say this. I got to say this.

[00:03:55]>> This is typical, >> right? You know, a little dreer to go to go with the uh proceed. I'm just saying.

[00:04:00]I'm just saying Maryland racing has been taking it on the chin for so long.

[00:04:05]Anything bad that can happen seems to happen. They are. But I just want to share a little story with you before we head out.

[00:04:11]>> And why don't we share that story a little farther away from this truck.

[00:04:14]>> From this truck, this idling truck.

[00:04:16]Let's do it.

[00:04:17]>> Let's walk to the uh >> Okay, >> let's walk >> because this is this is exactly where it happened. So, I park over here. It's 1992.

[00:04:28]I'm I'm walking to the press entrance, okay, at the clubhouse.

[00:04:34]Some draggled character is before the racist now comes up to me and he says, "Whoa, hell of a ride you give my horse on Thursday." I said, "Uh, sir, I think you have me mistaken with somebody." I says, "No, no, no mistake." He says, "What?

[00:04:51]What an exhibition." He said, "Split horses, switch whips. I MADE A TON ON THAT BET. I said, "Wow, really?" He said, "Yeah." He says, "I got something for you." Now, he reaches into his pocket. Now, I don't know. This guy looks like he just crawled out of a box car. Okay. He doesn't look like he's headed for the clubhouse. You know what I'm saying? And he reaches into his pocket and he pulls out a crumpled dollar bill and he says, "Here, here, take this." I said, "Wait a minute. I just rode the race of my life and all it's worth to you is a lousy dollar."

[00:05:23]>> And that's all you got?

[00:05:23]>> That's all I got? Well, I had a I had a a a misdirection type of thing as well.

[00:05:29]I was at the PRNness one year when I was still living in Washington.

[00:05:34]And so I leave the track after the PRNness and I go to Union Station to take the Mark train or the Amtrak back down to DC. And I get up the window to buy the ticket to get on the train and the old lady behind the counter starts blushing furiously and I go, "What's going on with you?"

[00:05:53]She goes, "I know who you are." I go, "Who am I?" She goes, "You're the jockey pot day."

[00:06:00]So, I gave her a Bible. I didn't give her a Bible. But, I mean, I was just like, "Here we are. It's it's opening day of the last biblical meat and an abbreviated meat, right? Six days. It's all we got. Greek this day is going to be the end."

[00:06:16]>> And you know, it's it's another mistake.

[00:06:19]I'm sorry. I'm not I'm going to be I'm going to be critical, but I'm going to be loving. But they should have run more days. They should have run more days up here. Six days. It's almost like let's get the hell out of here. That's it's a it's a it's not a good attitude because they're lot because I I know they're putting in their level best to run a really good pness here in Blackeyed Susan Day, but it would have been nice to have some farewell stuff at the track.

[00:06:43]>> Yeah. Build it up, right? have have a have an appropriate farewell. Before they turned all this into the parking lot, there used to be barns here and old wooden barns. And I remember talking to Bill Donovan. He was in in I think Barnell right over here. He was a trainer. Bill Donovan. And I'm sitting in his in his office and he gets paged.

[00:07:06]Bill Donovan, please come to the stablegate. Bill says, "Well, I'll I'll be right back and stay here." So, I just stay. Bill, he's gone a little bit of time. Bill comes back and I said, "Is it everything okay?" He said, "Yeah." He said, "When I was at Canterberry Downs," he said, "I had a groom show up." And he said, "This guy was phenomenal." His name was Walter Running Bear, and he said, "And I I didn't recall having had a Native American civil hand." He said, "But but this man Hey, good to see you."

[00:07:38]>> Yeah, good. He said, "But this guy, he was he was in touch. He was at one with the horses." And I told him, "Look, if you and if you ever want to leave Canterbury, come to Maryland. You got a job." And so when I was paid to the stablegate, Donovan said it was Walter Running Bear, his wife, and his two kids. So I said, "Well, where are they?"

[00:07:59]And and Donovan said, "Well, the the stable guy wouldn't let him through." I said, "Why not?" Because he said, "I He's got a wolf in the back of the truck." I don't know. That was just came to mind when I looked over here. Got a wolf.

[00:08:11]>> Wasn't that barn Dicky Smalls >> barn? Which one was Dicky Small?

[00:08:15]>> Uh, Dicki was down there on the other side of, wasn't he?

[00:08:19]>> I thought he was up over here, >> but but might have been.

[00:08:22]>> But I remember cuz I remember coming out of the back door >> and uh after races and once in a while I'd see Dicky just sitting on a box of straw.

[00:08:32]>> Yeah. and he'd be simmering because he would be mad at track management about something and he'd just be sitting out here and everybody else is going home.

[00:08:44]>> He uh he was he was such a sphinx sticky small right I mean a sphinx like so hard to read. He was uh he he was a certainly a magnificent trainer, but he was he was also sort of, you know, socially awkward, a little shy. And I remember going back to his barn before he sent Concern down for the Breeders Cup. And I had never seen him so bully and so confident was very out of character for him. And so when you saw six to one on concern in the Breeders Cup, just looking at Dicky's body language, that became a play.

[00:09:23]>> Yeah. Well, I had a situation with him too and he was running. It was before they had transferred Richard Kid, Richard's kid Baffford.

[00:09:31]>> Yeah.

[00:09:31]>> And he had and he uh he was running at a lowlevel type of race >> and um and um >> he come in second >> and I went to interview him. I guess I was working with the Washington Post at the time and he comes in second. And I went I said, you know, gez, it didn't work out the way, you know, didn't work out the way you wanted. And he just looks at me goes, it sets them up perfect for the next one.

[00:09:52]>> And I said to myself, I said, these people are thinking at a level that's a lot different.

[00:09:57]>> That's great.

[00:09:57]>> You know, and and and now and now >> the trainers, they they space the races for their horses so far apart that every race is the one you want to win.

[00:10:12]But there's old school there's a few of these old school guys out there that I'm happy to lose this one because I'm building stamina. I'm building up in the allowance. They don't even write the the condition book any >> in a way that allows you to build yourself up to the to the real goal exactly which is the big stakes race which is the the Jean v Campbell >> whatever. Right. But a guy like, you know, a guy like Dicki wants to win the camel, even if it's still $100,000 20 years after they were given $100,000 for it, you know, it's still cuz he wants to win it. And I love that those kind of guys. And and I think I think I don't know who's coming around here this week, but you'll get a mix of of younger trainers that are playing the the new game, but you'll you'll see like like play like Wayne Lucas is going to be out here, you know, when he's playing and he's old school and you can gravitate toward that and and get the stories. And so we're at the stakes barn here and it just floods back memories. I remember >> right when I started for the Washington Post, Lucas is here. Now, anybody who's loved racing knows he's a god, right?

[00:11:21]So, I mean, >> not only a god, but a pretty good quote, too.

[00:11:24]>> And I'm so short that everybody's a god.

[00:11:27]>> Right. So, I remember he had high yield here. This horse was so ornery that he is attached to the back of his stall on a chain that's only this long. And I'm like, that's not allowing the horse to move around. And the answer was, he'll kill all of us. reason it will kill all of us. So anyway, the So >> I get back there. There's D. Wayne Lucas and this guy is the king of the kings.

[00:11:53]And I go and I'm with the post, but I'm uh but I'm going to say hello and I introduce myself and I put my hand out and I go, you know, hey, Wayne, John Shyman, Washington Post. His hand doesn't come out to shake my hand. And and I know why because Andy Byer has written all these stories that have really given way our time and I'm gonna be taking the Andy doesn't come to the barn. I have to go to the barn. I got to take the brunt.

[00:12:21]Well, that was great.

[00:12:22]>> Yeah.

[00:12:23]>> I mean it see it's like it's the kind of thing that like it's the kind of thing like even if something bad happens to you, it can be a story, right? Of course.

[00:12:31]>> There's no hard feelings. The great thing about racing, which really distinguishes it from other sports, what I think about here at the States barn is that, you know, when you would go cover the derby, right? I mean, you would end up walking miles in the course of the morning going to all the barns and getting all the derby principles right.

[00:12:50]But here everything was self pretty much self-contained. I mean, >> this barn, you got this barn.

[00:12:55]>> Yeah. And you might have some other Pimlo based trainers who, you know, were in their own barns elsewhere, but I mean it was it was pretty economical in terms of coverage. And I recall one time this was early for Baffford. I mean he hadn't really made it. It was the silver charmier. So that was 97.

[00:13:14]And Baffford was he was really a cutup then. And I mean he might still be I don't know. I haven't I haven't talked to him in a long time.

[00:13:21]>> I think they fall a little flatter now.

[00:13:23]>> Well, they might. He he was the first one who, you know, it was just he and I.

[00:13:27]And it was always great when you can get him one-on-one and not have to deal with sort of the herd mentality, but uh he uh I'm getting ready. I go up to him and he knew me and he said uh he said, "Hey, have you uh have you tried Viagra yet?"

[00:13:41]I said, "No, I haven't." He said, "I did. Stuck in my throat. Let me tell you something. I had a stiff neck for two days." So, but that was sort of the kind of, you know, just sort of the idol banter you might get at any at any time, right? Which again, it differentiates racing from doing other major sports where you go into these club houses and you have these overpaid primadas who don't really have anything really cogent or or funny or enlightening to say and the racetrack men you just you just stumble your way into one good story after another. You know, when I started covering sports, I uh I started in boxing, but when I got to the Montgomery Journal newspaper in Montgomery County, Maryland, and you know, I get put on high school sports. That's the bread and butter of the paper, but I always had it in my mind, I don't want to do the team sports. I want to do the individual sports. So when they handed out the beats for the reporter, sports reporters to cover before the season started, this person's taking football, this person's taking basketball, this person's taking baseball. And I said, give me tennis, give me gymnastics, right? Because it could do one-on-one.

[00:14:54]So if you're covering the team sports, you get the coach and he's standing up there and he's giving a press conference. Even at high school, >> right? It's like I don't have time and don't talk to the players. You go to tennis, they're dying to talk to you.

[00:15:08]You go to horse racing, they're hanging out all morning long. You get there early, they take their horse out to the track, they run them around, they get their gallops in, and then they just kill time and hang out. And it's one story after another. It's this individual one-on-one nature of the coverage that made it so special because you could write such a richer story than having to fight tooth and nail to get to some primadana basketball player set.

[00:15:36]So, this was special.

[00:15:37]>> And from a reporter standpoint, >> there accessibility was never a problem, right? Because like you said, uh these people would, you know, they'd go through their paces in the morning.

[00:15:48]Yeah. you knew not to get in their way when the the training was going on and they had a lot of stuff to do. But there was a period after training ended before the racing start races started where you you know you were able to to to to sit down with some of these people. Lucas, like you mentioned, he'd set up his lawn chair outside the the end of the barn on the other side and just almost welcomed.

[00:16:07]>> And two, it was two years ago, I wrote a story that like um really given it to the trainers for not showing up at the alibi breakfast >> in the on the Thursday before the pness because only Shug McGee, >> who was old school, felt like he had a responsibility toward the race and toward the track to show up there. Now, Lucas would have been there had he been there, but I don't think he had a horse.

[00:16:34]But all the other young trainers are too busy.

[00:16:39]>> Here come the flowers.

[00:16:41]>> How about it?

[00:16:46]>> No, you know, and and what was the song?

[00:16:48]It was uh I'll play and Barrett. I see you in the garden and you look so Devon Air. Beware of the flowers cuz I'm sure they're going to get you. Yeah.

[00:16:59]your point, you know, you you you made a point about sort of the the new brand of trainer and I I never it it just made me it made me uh think of this linkage now and it sort of it sort of reflects the changing moray in society now where >> especially as as regards um you know really any money-making enterprise it's it's just become more commoditized more of a bottom line mentality, right? In the old days when we started coming around, I mean, think about the trainers who were around, you know, Buddy Dell, Eddie Godet, Tffy Hacker, Bill Donovan.

[00:17:40]I mean, these were they not only were gifted horsemen, but they were they were gifted rockinours.

[00:17:47]>> Absolutely. Characters, right? That's what drew us into the game. So, I'm at the I'm at the paddic one day washing the horses and Eddie Godet, great trainer, great guy. He comes over to me and he's got a he's got a styrofoam carry out container. And he goes, he goes, "John, I can't finish this. You want some French fries?" "No, not really, Eddie. I don't think I want any French." He goes, "Come on, help me out with these. Help me out with the French fries." I go, "I don't really want." He goes, "Come on, have some French fries." And see, he opens up the top of the lid, and there's the French fries smothered in ketchup. But he's poked one of his fingers up, through the hole, a hole in the bottom, and he's got his finger laying there with the other French fries.

[00:18:30]>> Well, that's the whole point of the That's the whole point of offering.

[00:18:34]>> Of course, that's a You got You got off easy. It's good it was just his finger poking through there cuz with Eddie with anything goes, right?

[00:18:42]>> Yeah. So, but >> I mean these were you know he was a guy I mean he his he was just a thrill to be around and a reporter's dream in terms of quotes and you know you you would let him run but there were sometimes you actually had to exercise like a little judgment like when he said to me did I ever tell you about the time I flew a plane under the the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and so that you know I mean sometimes you you had to look a little skep with a little skepticism of it all rolling. He was just, >> you know, when you say, you talk about the commoditized, the money being the bottom line, it also became very corporatized.

[00:19:20]Um, there was a an a an attitude around racing, not just in Maryland, but in New York as well, that disappeared. And so you had people that loved racing, running racing, and then all of a sudden people were running racing that didn't love it as much. They were corporate types. So I remember them banning beer in the press box and I'm thinking like this is a racetrack people.

[00:19:48]>> Exactly.

[00:19:49]>> This is a racetrack. Reporters drink.

[00:19:51]>> We drink but we have fun. you know, like it there's just they just they they just suck the fun out of so much of the life and and I don't know exactly where they lost the thread but I remember not you know the New York Racing Association be became very corporatized and when I started there when Charlie Haywood was running it Charlie's just a he's he just wants to sit there and bet as much as you do you know he just it's just as much about the fun and he wants to talk about horses he doesn't just want to go into like a big boardroom behind a big mahogany desk and have a big important conversation about whatever big important people do. And and that is missing from the game because you connect with people through stories, through excitement, through through your passion for the game. And if you can telegraph your passion for racing like a like a um like a chicklang, then you become kinetic and you develop and people are like this is something I want to get want to get involved in. But if it's just a suit who doesn't even go on the camera but sends his minions, there's a disconnect there. There's all of a sudden a layer of corporate stuff between you and the track and the enjoyment and the excitement that doesn't belong there. That's not supposed to be your face.

[00:21:14]>> With without getting too deep in the weeds here, this probably was an inevitability, right? Because look at >> What was an inevitability? Well, that there there would be sort of this handsoff sanitiz uh uh uh uh um move that >> perception that hands off sanitized detached sentiment because we we continue in modern society to get further and further removed from the horse. Further further removed from an agricultural way of life that broadly agricultural. you still obviously have some have a lot of pockets and so um in and along with that you know you had this pretty dramatic rise in purses and a pretty dramatic rise in costs too. So, uh, it it just I don't know, it just seemed inevitable that there was just going to be, you know, more of a of a grinding, you know, money motivated uh, approach to the game and you were just going to lose sort sort of that oldtime um, uh, more of a neighborhood appreciation of of what it was rather now than this sort of Wall Street uh, capitalization of the Hey, >> and and but and I think also um and let's go over to the side where they put the Kentucky Derby winner who's not coming.

[00:22:39]But I think I think the flushing out of the media as well was really harmful because because the let's face it, the racing writers themselves were characters, too.

[00:22:52]>> Oh my god. You know.

[00:22:53]>> Yeah, of course. So, so the writers were part of that the scene and and they were they were real storytellers.

[00:23:01]You know, it's so funny that like and I'm glad we're great friends. But between you and when you were at the Washington Post and then there was in between us I followed there was Dave McKenna.

[00:23:13]>> That's right.

[00:23:14]>> Love Dave McKenna. But Dave McKenna wasn't a racing guy racing. He was a weekend warrior who would show up and give him 10 inches on the stakes race and he had a good time and he loved it.

[00:23:23]but he wasn't developing it as a meat.

[00:23:26]But me and you, we're the last racing writers at the Washington Post and it's and it's that's I even saying it to this day so many years after I left, it's almost unfathomable that there's no coverage. Well, part of that too, you know, you you you have to hold newspapers themselves in contempt. You know, once once racing began allowing offtrack betting and and then especially telephone wagering and then you had computerized wagering and people could just stay at home. Sports editors, I mean, even George Solomon at the Post, I mean, he was he was a big Andy Buyer guy. He see he liked racing and he I think he understood the importance of of of the sport to the section but he would see the attendance numbers dwindling and you know he said well this this is a sport that's fallen out of favor. Well, no. You still had you still had a very just a very passionate core that that loved racing, right?

[00:24:26]>> They just weren't going to the track to to play. And so, Right. And so, first he he eliminated the entries. Well, he eliminated the graded line, then he eliminated the the entries all together.

[00:24:38]And then he eliminated the charts, the racing. There were no results, which just seemed sacrilege. Right. Exactly.

[00:24:45]And then, remarkably, the sun followed.

[00:24:47]the sun with prness in its own backyard, right? So, at that point, you know, what shot did anybody have? But I mean, the newspaper handicapper was was an icon for for 10 years and I and >> and and they would have the entries >> and then it would be so it was Rich Paul for a while and they would have he would have his three picks and the type would be this big. If you had bad eyesight, you can't see who they're big. But he was so even in that little space that they gave him was so creative. So like I remember like Rich would say like I remember like safely kept was running and of course they and this poor horse in the curl was like the Washington Generals that had to play safely kept Harlem Globe Trodders. I mean this horse like lost 30 times to safely kept but I remember safely kept was sired by a horse named Horatius.

[00:25:38]>> That's right.

[00:25:40]>> And Rich Paul wrote in the entry what hathoracious want. And I said, "This is fantastic." And then another another time >> there was a great horse, really fast horse named Floozy by Night, >> right?

[00:25:53]>> Great name.

[00:25:54]>> And he wrote it. It said the name of the horse, Floozy by Night and Rich wrote Rocket by Day.

[00:26:00]>> Love it.

[00:26:01]>> And oh boy. I mean, so I can still remember these things.

[00:26:04]>> Well, and it was it was romanticized and it was it was embraced like when when I uh filled in for Clem at the at the post of my early days. Pen Florio who's uh just um what can you say he still he still he still lords over uh aostumously this place right CLM but the post would would give $1,000 have a a best bet uh little section with $1,000 mythical bankroll so you could bet any way you want and when I when I filled in for Clem uh here at at Pimlo 6 weeks then at Timmonium I got to do the the I I I got to to play the mythical thousand. So, I make a play and usually could be $5, Jack the box, 10 to win, whatever. Okay, there's a there's a a bit of a long tale, but I'm going to go I'm going to go ahead. All right, so my my uh I wasn't married to my wife yet, but we we had plans to go to Ocean City, and I had some time off. It was the summer. Uh we had her late father's Pontiac Lemons, that thing could fly.

[00:27:10]and we're driving and we're just going nowhere. It's two lanes, you know, across the bridge. It can't go anywhere.

[00:27:16]It's things are bogging down. Finally, ahead there's there's an intersection with a traffic light and I see a left lane there. Nobody's in the left lane.

[00:27:25]So, I just kind of go into the left lane trying to time the light. The light's red, the light's red. The light turns green. Arrow to the left, green straight. Boom. From the left turn lane, I go straight. I pass everybody and I'm just cruising down the road. And now this is great. Now we're we're off right. There's kind of a shadow to the left to the left of me as as we're going down and it's it's it's persistent. I look over and it's this brown car and I see a state trooper put a Stson on his hat and go like this to me. So I go so I pull over. He comes out of the car. What were you doing back there? I said I don't know officer. Maybe maybe 60. He goes, "No, no, no. Not your speed. That stunt you pulled back there." I said, "Well, see officer, there was somebody in the left lane. And there were He said, "Yeah, I saw the old the old bat."

[00:28:11]He said, "She was she was pissing me off, but you know, the law says that if she's within 10 miles of the speed limit, I can't do anything about it." He says, "Your license registration." I get the license looking at him. He says, "Come on into the cruiser with me." I go I go into the cruiser. He's his His name plate says Brown. He's Officer Brown.

[00:28:29]And so he's going he's writing me up. He says, "Where you heading?" I said, "Oh City." He said, "Oh City. It's a port in the storm, isn't it?" I said, 'I I I guess you could consider it a portant storm. He says, "Yeah, yeah, yeah." He says, "Uh, what do you do for a living?"

[00:28:42]I said, "Oh, I I work the Washington Post. I'm an editor reporter." He goes, "Yeah, the Washington Post journalistically, Watergate and everything, it's a support for the storm, isn't it?" And I'm like, "Oh, gez, this guy, this guy is playing with me now. You know, I'm going to get rolled by a state trooper, right?" and he says uh he says um it's uh it's it's really great, isn't it, when you you're you're young and you're just you're foot loose and you're just going to you just think you can do whatever you want and drive the way drive the way you want and uh and and you know the the the lemons you're driving. He says, "I know that car can go, right?" I said, "Yeah." He said, "It's a port and a sort." I I said, "Officer," I I said, "Is there is there seems to be a theme here?" And he goes like this to me. Hey you goof. Look in the back seat. In the back seat he has a walkie-talkie over a folded daily racing form. And then it hit me. I play I bet a hundred to win mythically on porting the storm at Pibilico and she paid 780. And he said I he said I got good. He said I know when you bet a hundred. He said I know. I I I I got to go to the window. He said so here's just a warning. Just that >> by the way you hit me right.

[00:29:56]>> Oh Jesus. Your fork was >> Oh my god. I Man down.

[00:30:00]>> This gets edited out. Stop touching it.

[00:30:03]>> That hurt. And I just >> Is there anything I can palpate?

[00:30:05]>> Well, I know. I could use a napkin to clean the blood out with Jesus Christ.

[00:30:09]>> Seriously.

[00:30:10]>> No. No. No. No. Stop. Stop. We're fine.

[00:30:12]We're fine.

[00:30:13]>> Well, you're making me nervous over here.

[00:30:15]>> By the way, for the people who who who don't know, when you work at a newspaper, the $1,000 is always mythical. Okay.

[00:30:25]Right. Right. Right. There's nothing real about it.

[00:30:28]>> So, so here >> so here >> this is the this is this is where the action takes place and this stall right here is the traditional stall to put in the Kentucky Derby winner. I remember coming out of here one year and they're bringing the der the the derby winner in. Of course it's Baffford. It's always Baffford after a while. And he's walking this he's walking this shed rope and he pulls a rock out. This is big.

[00:30:58]It was just crazy. But this is like a little bit of a nutty It's a nutty place back here. It's not normal. I mean, if you look over there, that's where the horses can graze. That's This grass is where they can gra That's it. That's the grazing. It's kind of different. You know, you were talking about how you go to Churchill Downs, you and and Jeff and I did this. We >> when we when we did Kentucky Confidential in 2011 and 12, you walk for miles to go from one barn to the other. You go to Belmont Park, you're at the Shire in Lord of the Rings. That's how big it and crazy it felt back there.

[00:31:35]But you come here, like you said, it's all condensed and it's all in one spot and um it's a city track. It's different. Now granted, Belmont Park is an oasis in a kind of a city with in Elmont, Long Island. That's kind of bu a builtup area, but they the they've changed it now again because they knocked it down, but that was a it was a lot of beautiful green open land. And Churchill in the city as well is still a lot of tremendous. There is no open land here. Just you're right on the corner of what of Park Heights and Northern Parkway and that's it. It's a real city track like Hawthorne. It's a real city track. So, people come in complaining, "Well, I'm sorry. We're not in heaven anymore.

[00:32:23]We're not in Keeland anymore. Get used to it. We're a little bit tougher here."

[00:32:28]Okay? You know, the horses will mug you if no one's around. Well, you you first of all, I I always thought that the the the neighborhood got a bit of an unfair raft, but but but to your point, um look, look at it as an oasis in its urban setting, right? I mean, it's just this this it's a play. Yes, absolutely.

[00:32:50]>> Valley. That's a great >> So, I that you know, I loved race. I started getting into racing in the mid 80s.

[00:32:58]I'd be out of the infield for the pnness. It ain't like that anymore the way it was, right? It was it was a world unto itself with a lot of little mitty worlds. It like you could walk through the infield during the pnness and here's a city and here's a city and these crazy people are here and these people are drinking and these people are having sex and these people have set up a living room that looks exactly like their ri living room out in uh Park Heights. Not in Park Heights, like out in Parkville or wherever out there.

[00:33:27]>> Like people would bring in couches. I saw people bring in lamps. They just there's no place to plug them in. They just wanted it to look like a living room. They had a coffee table and then they would cordon it off. And some people didn't bother with the cordoning off. They just threw a blanket and they created chaos and fun, you know. And I was thinking about it and I said to myself, what happened first of all? But my my thinking was we're talking about a time in the 80s and the early 90s where you didn't have a fl a smartphone.

[00:34:01]You didn't need screens everywhere. You weren't connected up through the internet. You didn't bet at home. You came, right? And you didn't and you and you didn't need to be entertained by having stuff pushed at you. You made your own fun. So you could come to the racetrack. So people come to Pimplico even now and they look at the place and they go, "This is it dumb." No. This is a magical world that you don't understand because all you're doing is looking in your smartphone and wondering what the next uh show on Netflix you're going to watch is all this junk that is now permeating your life. You can't relate to what goes on here or what went on here anymore. So, it's being lost. I don't know how they're going to recapture it. But it's a beauty of being the age and the ages that we are is that we've crossed an expanse of time where we knew how things were and now we know how things are and they're different and it was different over here. And you want to know what? It was better over here.

[00:35:04]It was more fun and now it's less fun.

[00:35:08]And racing's got a big challenge in front of it to recapture fun. that is profound and uh prosaic poetic. So I I I I I want to compliment your ghostriter but you know whoever gave you that material. No seriously. No that's that's fabulous. You had mentioned the infield uh and in terms of you know back in the 80s of course you had this no cell phones. I mean everything this was the interaction okay human interaction face to face. And I I did an infield piece one year and I it it never dawned on me that this would exist, but there were people who would state their claims at specific parts of the infield every year. Relationships developed from it.

[00:35:54]And I remember there were these three guys who had t-shirts with with mock tuxedos on them, black, black and white.

[00:36:02]They look very similar, the Callahan brothers they were called. And they they they I by the time I came to them uh I said, you know, asked them about their history. He says, "Yeah, we're here every year." He said, "For the last nine years, we have we have had the the pleasure of reacquainting with this guy named Dexter, whom we only knew from the Pnness Infield, never had no other." And I said, "Well, where is he?" And one of the Callahan brothers said, "He isn't here. We can only assume he died >> because if he were living surely he would be you know it was just that kind of allure >> and also you didn't have this cosplay that we have now where they kind of come out to Bimico trying to imitate the dressing that they do out at Churchill Downs for the derby. Back in the 80s and early 90s they didn't dress up in finery and fancy dresses and clothes with fascinators. They came out like sch slubs and they they carted in as many cases of beer as they could and they were dressed to get sloppy. They knew they were going to be rolling around like pigs in the infield and they would bring kegs kegs of beer and they'd bring their cases and there would be tons of tons of pretty girls, right? And I remember I had my girlfriend and my buddy came down from uh Cape Cod with his girlfriend and they're having sex all over the infield. Not us. Everybody you'd see couples tumbling out of the portage like you know what they're doing in there. You'd see you'd see stuff you wouldn't believe. I saw I saw like 10 people 15 people on a blanket >> and they snapped the blanket and a naked guy would go flying up in the air. I mean that's what this was this is the bring in deal and my buddy from Cape Cod he looks at me he goes Johnny next year we don't bring the girls >> because it was chaos and so much fun and it got and I understand how >> track president at the time Tom Schukas why he canled it because people had start there had been a little more violence that started taking place and they and when they they were doing the running of the urinals you can go on YouTube and look that up people would go up on the port of John's and run across them, but people were throwing full beer cans at them. If somebody's going to get hurt, >> like a shooting gallery. Yes.

[00:38:29]>> But when we talk about, you know, like the corporatizing >> of the game, but people start worrying about insurance, you know, why are we going to have to pay who's going to su?

[00:38:41]>> There are liability issues.

[00:38:42]>> So, there's liability issues and all of a sudden the fund is bleeding and draining out. You can't drink as much.

[00:38:48]911 comes along. Okay, now you can't bring anything into the track. Right.

[00:38:53]>> Right.

[00:38:54]>> You So you can't bring your beer anymore and you can't bring your blanket and you can't bring your mom's living room anymore. Oh, okay. So now I remember going to Churchill Downs in the one of the two two or three years right after 9/11 took place. And I'm going into Churchill Downs and a big security goon comes over and he goes, "What do you got there?" I go, "I got my binoculars." He goes, "You can't bring them in." And I'm thinking the day you can't bring binoculars into a racetrack is the end.

[00:39:22]So all these things that we are old enough to know that keep get taken away and keep disappearing. And >> it's really hard for racing because because the community and the fun that made racing has been drained out and but you still have the racing and it's still exciting. But it's harder to get there if you're an outsider.

[00:39:46]you know, and I don't think that bringing in and I'm being critical, but I whatever. I don't think bringing in electronic dance music is really going to get it done because you're not making the connection. Why are we here? We didn't have Look, I've loved some of the bands, Lord, Bruno Mars. I mean, there've been some great shows in the Enfield, but the time that we're talking about, they didn't have bands. You made your own fun. It was all making your own fun and everybody was an animal, but they're still kind of watching the Let me tell you a story. Here's a story.

[00:40:20]When you walk through the infield back in the day with a 100,000 people in the infield, maybe 80,000 people in the infield, you're going to different scenes. There's different scenes everywhere, right? Everybody's got a different pocket and different personalities. So, I remember once I'm drunk and I'm roaming and I want to get a good view of they had maybe two jumbotrons that faced the infield so these wild animals could actually watch the races if they wanted to. And it's kind of primitive jumbotrons. They're not the state-of-the-art 1080p or whatever it is at the time. So, I'm way away from my people and I'm wandering through and I and they're loading for the pnness. This is the year that Summer Squall turned the tables on Unbridled, who would won the uh Kentucky Derby for Francis Gender and Colin Monster.

[00:41:12]>> So, nobody knows what's going on because nobody knows what they're doing and they're all drunk. So, little me, I hopped up on a keg. I don't know who these people are. I'm standing on their keg and I look at the jumbotron and in my de best Dave Johnson voice I call the prness right and they're off and the hund prness stinks and and and to the clubhouse turn they go and such and such is on the lead and I'm pride all this five lights off and summer spawn was outside and I'm doing the whole thing all of a sudden a crowd forms around the keg >> how about like Jesus of Nazareth at the racetrack you were the shortest Jesus of Nazareth ever. So, I'm up on the keg and I got probably I probably got 50 people around me at this point. That's a lot of people. They're listening to me and DOWN THE STRETCH THEY COME IN the pness stakes. They're whooping and hollering and I go and unbridled has won the pness. They're all going completely bananas, hugging and cheering. And I look up and I go, "La, he didn't win summer. He didn't win summer squall."

[00:42:16]And but I didn't say it was summer squall. I left it for them as unbridled.

[00:42:21]hopped off the keg and ran into the crowd and disappeared.

[00:42:24]>> Bye-bye to the safe.

[00:42:28]>> A few of them got a shock when they went to the window to try to catch that ticket. But the point is is that so much fun. It's like I I've I've experienced and done things in the infield. We're not even talking about in the grand stand, which is all different stories.

[00:42:42]That never going to happen again. And it's kind of sad that the younger generations because it was mostly young people in the infield, they don't they don't feel it or get it or do it anymore. It's just not there. And it was like, you know, there's a Karen de Francis whose brother Joe ran and owned the track for a while. She made a documentary in 2001 about the history of the Bridus and Charles E. Kanty who was one of the famous first ladies of racing. She she was a correspondent for ABC Sports, ABC Wild Sports.

[00:43:17]She's in the video in the film talking about the Preenness and she goes and she goes, "It's not like the other races."

[00:43:26]She goes, "I feel like I'm at somebody's backyard cookout >> and that's what it is. It's like it's somebody's backyard cookout." And so, so the derby was always the derby, but the prness was the they always called it the people's party. the People's Party. It's not the People's Party anymore. How do we get it back to that? That's a big question. That is a huge challenge for whoever's taking over this racetrack right now. But there are things that need to be reestablished with the city of Baltimore.

[00:43:58]Well, it needs to be a cooperative. I mean, it needs to be because everybody should have a shared objective, right?

[00:44:04]And so, but somehow getting from here to there can be dicey. I I just remember um trainers would come here for the pnness.

[00:44:13]I'm thinking about guys like Ron Mali, Wayne Lucas, and they would they were always ultra complimentary of the treatment they got here. I mean, you talk about sort of this, you know, the smaller town feel, right? The derby is is is just a spectacle and it's it's in many ways not very approachable, but the Prius, everything is at arms length here, right? and you're you're you're close up and people that these trainers would just marvel about how the the special treatment they received and how how welcome they felt here. And I think that just speaks to the overall vibe about this place just being, you know, smaller town, smaller time. Yeah, it was grittier than the than the derby, but there was an authentic grittiness to it.

[00:44:58]It was organic. It was accepted and natural. And so and then you'd have the alibi breakfast on the Thursday morning before the freakness and that dates back to the 1930s and people used to take it seriously.

[00:45:14]The trainers would come in and they'd literally have alibis for why they lost the derby. Now the derby horses don't come to Biblico. So there's no need for alibis. We just don't show up. And then the trainers who maybe did run in the Kentucky Derby, they don't come to the breakfast. So what are you all doing? So all these things that made it magical because you would go in there and there's some really good fried chicken and you're already drinking black eyed susans and it's not even 10:00 a.m. and and so you're greasing that wheel with a nice cocktail in the morning. You got fried chicken, you got waffles, you got sauce. I mean, you got so much food and you got so much camaraderie and you got so much and then and then and then you'll have the who's who's the the guy from the arch diocese who would come in Lori I don't know they would have some the biggest Catholic the biggest Catholic in the city would come in and bless the Britness and wish everyone you know safe safe journey safe travels everyone get home safe all this stuff the the old hilltop award the all these all this stuff that perpetuates history and perpetuates a connection to the past where you could tunnel your way back to man of war. They don't want to look at it anymore. So like you're missing the bre you're missing the you're missing the ghosts. You're missing the magic.

[00:46:38]you're missing the air because this is just another track on your stop as of being a big shot. When you the pnness is just another grade one race to some of them. When you have a sport that's losing its luster, you need to hold fast to your traditions, right? because that gives you that gives you substance and it gives you hope that you can someday return to to that point and to just abandon it willy-nilly is a college.

[00:47:10]Yeah. You know, and and you can tell which ones really take it to heart like a grand motion who feels that history.

[00:47:19]You know, we're standing outside the stakes barn here. I remember they used to run the Pimlo special, >> one of the greatest races in American history, which now is just a little trinket, >> but they would run it the week before the PNness.

[00:47:36]So the best older horses in America would be brought in with the PNIS horses in advance to run that weekend before.

[00:47:48]It was a big deal. everyone's it puts it it creates a time where more the where the trainers are now on the ground longer and the big horses are now on the ground longer and and so you can tell more stories and and it builds up the excitement but that I remember how much that race meant to some people who knew that the Pimlo special was won by all the great horses and it was Nikki Zitto the New Yorker he's up here with a horse named Wandering boy and Wandering Boy's up by three or four lengths at the top of the lane.

[00:48:24]He's going to win one of the biggest races you can ever win. He's already won the Kentucky Derby with Strike the Gold, but now he's going to win the Pimlo special. It's meaning a lot to him. Here comes Kieran McLaclin's in Bazour.

[00:48:37]Bazor, the South American horse blows him away.

[00:48:40]And we spent a lot of time in the press box after that, right? Everybody's writing their stories, but we're probably hanging out and still gambling.

[00:48:48]And I remember coming out here, I'm going to use a word that Bill Knack would use. Came out here in the globing.

[00:48:54]We came out here in the globing. And I come out here, there's nobody here at the stakes bar. I'm walking to my car across the street. There's Nick. There's Nicki Zto all alone. And he has a glazed look on his face. And I went up to him and I said, "What are you doing here?"

[00:49:10]He goes, "We had it."

[00:49:13]>> He doesn't even say what he's doing here. He just says, "We had it. We had it. We had it." He's shocked. Yes.

[00:49:20]>> And he's demoralized that this opportunity to win something so literally special. Named the special and he's and it's gotten out of his grasp.

[00:49:30]You don't see that stuff anymore.

[00:49:32]>> Shows you what it meant to him because it meant more than the purse, right?

[00:49:36]There was there was a heraldry about it, right? winning that race.

[00:49:40]>> And there still are some things like that and you still see pockets of it. I remember when you know I saw it up in Saratoga when when uh when um Graham Motion won the Whitney. I think it was with Bulls Bay.

[00:49:52]>> Here's Graham Motion who's won thousands of races is going to wind up in the Hall of Fame. He's weeping. He's weeping.

[00:49:59]back.

[00:49:59]>> I also remember Dale Capawano winning the $50,000 politely stakes at Laurel and he's weeping in the winner circle.

[00:50:07]And I went up to him and I said, "Why are you crying?" He goes, "When you just do this work, every morning you get up.

[00:50:15]Every morning you get up and you do the same things and you try to get these horses to be their best and you just and then when they win it and then when they're able to do it, it just fills your heart. It's a $50,000 race, but some guys really feel it on a level of a depth level that's so important. And when you can when you can relay that to the public and show that passion and that magic, it's really that's that's so necessary. It's so necessary.

[00:50:43]>> That also that also makes me think of how racing >> it reflects more of the work a day ethic that made the country great. You know, these trainers are out here like Dale before he went up politely and they are putting their horses through through their paces every day. They're making out their their training sheets. They're dealing with the help and without any guarantees of of doing good, right? I mean, you're you're going to you're going to get a per day rate, of course, but your horses need to perform to to to really uh excel in this game. And there is uh there's something really complimentary about the track. The track opened on October 25th, 1870. And it's had it's had a number of iterations. Um originally it was an open air uh grandstand as they were in the day, 2400 uh feet long. And there was that big members only clubhouse, that exclusive clubhouse on the on the the clubhouse turn actually that was uh destroyed by fire in 1966.

[00:51:55]Um but you know the track has has it has been recreated a number of times and now we're just waiting for the next iteration. How do you introduce people to the animals >> and and you would have you know in in the prefaces of old? uh you would you would see uh parents bringing children out and they you know they they'd walk around the state's barn and they'd look at the horses and if you had if a trainer had one that was that was tame enough you they they could they could pet the horses and >> um what's the big what's the big party they have after the freakness cuz they don't see that anywhere else >> where they just the track buys tons of beer and wine and over on the other side right here.

[00:52:37]>> Yes. Yes. But but the horses are just they're all sticking their heads out of their stalls and they're watching the people party after the brief test cuz they want to see what all the ruckus is.

[00:52:48]I I mean I don't I wonder if that that's a tradition that dates back as long as at least I've been covering racing to have that little party.

[00:52:56]>> Yeah.

[00:52:56]>> And not everybody knew about it. It was sort of for the people that had done all the work about it.

[00:53:01]>> All right. They did all the work. So you So all of a sudden and the trainers who were normal people loved it. See, cuz there you see you go over there and you crack open a bud and there's the writers and now it's not it's no longer, oh, can you tell us how your horse is doing? Now it's like, hey, how's it going? How's it going? And you know, you'd have the stable hands and you'd have the pony girls and and everybody and a few fans that were smart enough to know that it was going on would be out there and it's just like it's almost like, okay, I went to summer camp in Maine, right? They'd have a three-day color war, red versus gray, and the camp would be divided in two, and you'd compete in all these sports, and in the end, one side won, and one side lost, and then they'd all get together and jump in the lake and hug each other. That's what this was. All the competition would end, all the races, all the I need, you know, everybody wanted to win, but then they all meet over there, back there, and they just drink and hug and talk. And they don't do that at the other tracks.

[00:54:03]They didn't do that at Belmont. They didn't do that at Churchill. They've not done that anywhere. That was something that was just pibilico.

[00:54:11]>> Did your parents ship you off to boarding school, too, when they weren't dumping you?

[00:54:14]>> The summer camp was a two-month camp, believe me.

[00:54:16]>> Oh, really?

[00:54:17]>> I came home, they said, "Phil," I'm like, "That's John."

[00:54:21]>> All right, >> you're back.

[00:54:23]>> We thought you'd drown in the canoe.

[00:54:25]Said, "No, the canoe was fine."

[00:54:29]>> That's good. No capsizing.

[00:54:31]>> Okay. Well, yeah. I mean, how I mean, I'm glad I went to summer camp, but but I mean, that was that was a good lesson to learn that that that that traditions. There were a lot of traditions at the camp. So, I knew about tra I had learned, you know, that's a good place for a kid to get exposed to things that go back very long.

[00:54:52]Traditions that dated back to like probably 1930s and we're still and we're living them each year, a new generation of kids. So you go into these crummy old bunks that we're living in and this kids from the past, their names are still squalled on the ceiling, you know, right? Like like cave etchings, right?

[00:55:11]And yeah, it gives it gives you insight into what happened before. It's historical like, "Oh, I wonder who that kid is." And and and and you and you set stories off in your mind because your mind, your imagination, and this gets back to the thing I was saying about the screens.

[00:55:27]>> The what?

[00:55:28]>> The screens.

[00:55:30]Now, everything is told to you, >> right?

[00:55:33]>> You don't have to fill in the blanks on anything with your imagination.

[00:55:36]>> It's passive, right?

[00:55:38]>> It's passive.

[00:55:38]>> Yes.

[00:55:39]>> Acceptance and taking of what is being given to you. When there were no screens, when there was no internet, you made up your life or you looked into the past and saw signs from the past because traditions carried okay >> carried on. Well, this is how traditions fade, isn't it? Right? Society changes, moray change, technology changes. Uh, I mean, I look at my own family, generations, generations of flim flammers, guys who ran the short con, uh, you know, and and I I remember my uncle Clammy coming to the house one day and >> Clammy Clammy Salvatore Chumpy, but all the times he he got jammed up, he never gave anybody up, so he that's how he got the name Clammy. And >> Clammed up.

[00:56:26]>> Exactly. Clam. And so I was 12 years old. He found out I was in the school spelling be and he says to my father, "Hey, Louie, how old's this kid?" He didn't know my name even though he baptized my brother, Clammy. Okay. And my father said, "I think he's 11." I said, "I'm 12, Pop." So Clammy says, "12 years old, this kid don't know how to run numbers. Don't know how to rig bingo. Don't know how to run Horton.

[00:56:50]What are you doing with this kid?" But you know, traditions change. They they just do over time. Priorities uh intervene. But how do you keep a sport alive? But but when I started coming out to the races here in the mid80s, I would say you'd have clusters of very boisterous and loud Jamaican guys, and you'd have Chinese guys, and you'd have old, hey, how you doing guys, and you'd have stupers looking for tickets to see if somebody had dropped a live ticket. So these guys are hoovering up your lost, losing tickets. You had a you had such an array of weirdo characters that created um um color.

[00:57:32]>> No question.

[00:57:33]>> They did. And and I So this is so this I didn't have an uncle who dragged me out to the races. I didn't have somebody in the family reading the racing form at the dinner table. I did it on my own. I I started to drift up to Pimlo and drift out to Lauren. I said, "Oh my god, this is exciting. Look at the richness of character of the people that are all in here losing together together. Together.

[00:57:57]That's so important. You're against everyone who's there and yet you're with them, too, because we're all trying to do the same thing. We're trying to have fun and we're trying to score a buck.

[00:58:08]>> No doubt.

[00:58:09]>> We're trying to Who's got the angle?

[00:58:10]Hey, who do you like? Who do you like?

[00:58:13]What a fundamental question for horse racing. Who do you like?

[00:58:16]>> The essential question. And so, but then you but then it's creating a conversation and then somebody's got a wild tail on why this horse is going to win and it's it's the craziest thing you've ever heard and you're going, "Let me go get a little of that."

[00:58:29]>> Exactly. Yeah, I know about that.

[00:58:30]>> You never you never fully discount.

[00:58:32]>> I was at the races around Christmas one year. I'm at Laurel and the horses come out to the track and they they do a post parade in front of the grand stand. They're starting to warm them up and then they're announcing, you know, who this who the horse is, right? So, they come out for one of the races. It's a nondescript claiming race. And I'm not going to name the jockey.

[00:58:57]And I didn't really know him very well.

[00:59:00]And they they they they come out of the paddic and they go down and then they turn around and then they're going to break off and warm up. And so when they turn back around, one of the jockeyies looks at me and he goes, "Merry Christmas, John."

[00:59:13]and then takes off. And I sat there and I was like, I got to go bet. I got to go bed. He's giving me a gift, but I got to be able to read the signal. He won for fun. I don't know why he did it, but how exciting is that?

[00:59:29]>> That's pretty good, >> right? That's fantastic stuff. Nobody at the Nick game or at the Wizards game is going to go, "Merry Christmas, John," and then hit a three-pointer with a buzzer.

[00:59:41]>> Yeah, it's the same. It's a different world, right? It's a different world.

[00:59:45]>> It was just >> But you know, it it's in that context, it would be demoralizing in as much as you're betting against other people when you saw old men in in pajamas chomping a cigar and spitting on the floor indoors and you could not win at the races like I'm losing to him. You know, it would didn't do wonders for one's self-esteem.