Underdogs

Horse racing fans are abuzz about the Kentucky Derby last Saturday.  Sports fans in general are enthralled by the Rocky-esque storyline of Mine That Bird, the little horse that could.  But the story goes deeper than that.  There is a whole list of underdogs in this story.  You see, some of the most successful jockeys in history started out as “underdogs” at this southern New Mexico track.  The idea that a 50-1 shot in the Kentucky Derby could come from dead last 1/2 way through the race to win by 8 lengths is something you’d expect to only  see in a Disney movie; it sounds cute and nice, but it’s just a movie, after all.  Well, not on Saturday it wasn’t.  It’s one of those stories you have to see to believe.  If someone told it to you, you’d call them a liar.

Mine That Bird came to the Kentucky Derby via Sunland Park Racetrack.  I have a little history with that horse-track.  It’s less than 2 miles from the house I grew up in; the house my Mother still lives in.  It’s a stones throw from The State Line Restaurant were I worked for over 10 years.  Almost everyone in my family worked at that racetrack at some point in time.  My father worked for a company that supplied the pari-mutual betting equipment needed to run a racetrack; the ticket machines, odds board, etc..  His job took us all over the Southwest when we were kids.  El Paso was home-base, but when the meet ended in May, we were off to other New Mexico racetack towns like; Raton, Santa Fe and the State Fair in Albuquerque.  Our neighborhood was filled with families with ties to the track; the Johnsons, the Knotts, the Luthers, the Spensers, the Shores, the Lidbergs; most of them summer transients, just like us.  Some went to Raton, Santa Fe or Ruidoso in New Mexico, others went to Arizona or California.  Some were administrators, money room managers, ticket machine operators, horse trainers or jockeys.  We all had one thing in common: life between Memorial Day and Labor Day was always spent far from home.

Sunland Park opened in 1959 and my father worked there until 1986 when the track was sold.  The man who bought it owned a company that was the main competition for my fathers company.  That meant Dad had to find a new home base.  His company sent him to Phoenix, Arizona, but with 2 kids in High School and a house already paid for, the family stayed in El Paso.  I got out to see him at least once a month and he’d come home every other week via Southwest Airlines’ $39 Fun Fares.  He spent 6 years there by himself before he retired.

There was plenty of adventure for a young kid growing up around a racetrack.  I remember one time the track photographer came into the Tote room (that’s what my father’s “office” was called) with a picture for my Dad.  After each race the winning horse is photographed in the Winners Circle with a banner, the jockey, the trainer, sponsors, the owner and whoever else the owner wants in the picture.  “What’s this?” my father asked.  “I think that’s your boy in the picture, isn’t it?” said the photographer.  My Dad looked at it and saw my brother Steve, who was about 8 or 9 at the time, standing right in front with the horse owner.  “That’s him, alright”, said my Dad, “but what’s he doing in this picture?  He doesn’t know any of these people.”  “I don’t know”, laughed the photographer, “but he’s been in every picture today.”  Seems that Steve was a little ham and was sneaking under the railing of the Winners Circle after each race to get in the pictures.  He still has that picture, somewhere; it hung in our room for years.

We met lots of interesting people through the years.  One of my father’s good friends was Tom White Jr., an FBI agent who worked security for the racetrack.  Mr. White’s father was a former FBI agent as well and also served as Warden at Leavenworth prison and La Tuna prison just up the road from El Paso.  I’d sit for hours and listen to him tell stories of the bad guys he and his father would track down.  I don’t recall his full involvement, but I know that Tom White Sr. helped bring in John Dillinger.  Well, bring in is a relative term, I guess; he was dead in a box after all.  Mr. White would give my brother and I Wanted posters like those that hung in post offices.  I seem to remember some bad guy named Clarence something that had bad teeth and hung on my bulletin board for a few years.  Don’t know if they ever caught him or not.  George Maloof Sr. was a friend of my fathers too.  You may have heard of his son’s; George and Gavin.  They do alright for themselves.  Owning the Sacramento Kings and The Palms in Las Vegas looks good on any resume.  My Dad’s favorite George Maloof story involves Mr. Maloof walking into the Tote room one day with Jerry Apodaca, the then Governor of New Mexico right behind him.  “Hello, George!” Mr. Maloof said to my father, “You know the Governor, right?” he said as he motioned his thumb over his shoulder.  After a few minutes of conversation Mr. Maloof left with his Governor in tow; there were no arguments over who ran the state of New Mexico in those days.  Chope Benavides worked at Sunland Park for years also, but that wasn’t his only vocation.  Chope did a little of everything.  He had a farm, a restaurant, a bar, all kinds of things.  His restaurant is an institution in El Paso and the surrounding area.  My favorite memory of Chope is when the chile harvest came in October.  Every year Chope would stop by our house with one or two big burlap sacks of chiles from his farm.  We’d all sit on the back porch roasting chiles while Chope and my father would talk.  Here is a great link that will tell you all about him.  If you scroll down to the bottom you’ll see a picture of him.

Seeing that underdog long-shot from my home turf pulling away at the end brought forth a flood of memories.  There’s just something about the triumph of lowered expectations over the perceived superiority of the know-it-all’s.  That’s why we love Rocky Balboa, Hoosiers, Rudy and the Jamaican Bobsled team; because a lot of times they remind us of ourselves.