Are We They?

W. Hays Parks

Ms. Garmon

20 October 2010

English 103

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Are We “They”?

The Paradoxes Facing Modern Day Thoroughbred and Greyhound Racing

Preface

All of my life I have been around Thoroughbred and Greyhound racing. I have relatives that were thoroughbred breeders, and I have worked as a teller at an Off Track Betting facility for Gulfstream Park. With the knowledge and experiences I have, I have never considered the anti-racing advocates as anything more than uninformed, dyspeptic white noise.

One of my earliest childhood memories is in fact my first trips to a Greyhound and Thoroughbred racetracks. And there is a distinction between the two. Each may possess their own smells, colors and ambiance, but they are brothers. Thoroughbred racing is the more prestigious and mainstream, but Greyhound racing’s seedier feel may add to its allure. Racing and betting occur here. As Richard Dreyfus’ character said in the film Let It Ride, “There is no racing without betting” (Pytka).

My first impressions of the track as a child were as if attempting to take in the personality of an outdoor market in a foreign land. The air was filled with an endless cacophony of a language with which I was not familiar. The power and grace of the animals on the track was breathtaking as well as undeniable. Even standing still, the sinews that show through the body of a greyhound and thoroughbred are readily apparent. The atmosphere is distinct in that Greyhounds generally run at night, and the evening humidity of Florida hangs in the air like a wet blanket. Thoroughbreds typically run during the day, but with approximately forty-five minutes between races as opposed to 15 minutes at Greyhound tracks, it is a much more leisurely pace and day. Both tracks have, as Bill Nack has described them, “..Damon Runyanesque characters…” (Nack) As a small boy, spending time in what some would call a den of inequity, a day at the track was as if I was at sea...