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A Tour of the Backside© Greg Melikov
Feb 18, 2003
If you haven't been to the backside of a racetrack, you don't know what you're missing.
The backside, where horses are stabled and cared for, is an interesting part of the racing community.
I've been to some tracks where the environment was less than adequate. I've also been to some facilities where life wasn't that bad - at Calder Race Course, Gulfstream Park and Hialeah Race Course in South Florida.
But this is a tale of the cleanest barn area I've toured. It was the afternoon of the 2002 Belmont Stakes at Retama Park. I took the walk to Barn 10 at the track, which is a short gallop from the San Antonio city limits. I must say I was impressed.
Bob Pollock, Retama's general manager, led the way. It isn't that far from the finish line to Barn 10, but I'm glad I wore my walking shoes.
Along the way, Bob filled us in on a few pertinent facts, including:
*Retama's six huge satellite dishes simulcast a dozen races at a time from numerous tracks every day except Christmas.
*During the spring quarter horse and fall thoroughbred meetings, about 1,130 horses are stabled at the track, including quite a few for training purposes.
During our walk, we saw four horses tied to a walking ring who were quite rambunctious. They represented three different breeds: an appaloosa where races for this type are staged in Oklahoma; a quarter horse who most of us thought was a thoroughbred; and a thoroughbred who looked pretty sleek.
What impressed me the most was Barn 10, where trainer Tooter Jordan had 30 horses stabled. Tooter, the leading rider in 1965 at defunct Bandera Downs, became a trainer in '72.
His barn was clean as a whistle. As Tooter pointed out, there were no flies and "racehorses eat the best food that I can buy." There are two kinds of hay, he explained, pointing to stacks not far from us.
It was surprisingly cool in the shade of the barn. The horses were also quite comfortable as each stall had a fan overhead.
We watched a demonstration of how a quarter-horse is saddled. And visitors were allowed to pet the animals, including Ringo, the track mascot.
Tooter trains some thoroughbreds, but concentrates on the quarter-horse circuit: Retama to Sam Houston Park to Lone Star Park.
"If you believe in reincarnation," he told a group of about 50, "you should come back as a racehorse because they get the best of care."
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