Blazing Saddles

A long, proud Fairmount Park tradition may soon come to an end.

By Mike Newall
Add Comment Add Comment | Comments: 1 | Posted Aug. 11, 2004

A muddy white pickup truck slowly pulls into an empty gravel parking lot next to the Speedway, a grassy 500-yard straightaway lined with thick low-hanging trees in Fairmount Park.

A procession of cars follows. Men, young and old, pile out. Some wear sports jerseys and ballcaps, others barn boots and dirt-stained jeans. A few men arrive galloping out of the brush, cool atop their mounts, sporting cowboy hats and silver-and-gold Western-style belt buckles.

A car radio blasts old-school soul.

Wives and girlfriends gather at picnic tables, holding babies, chatting and laughing.

The men hang in the parking lot, shaking hands, giving bear hugs and talking trash, the first language of the Speedway.

"When you gonna bring your horse up here?"

"Man, just tell me when you want to do it."

"Shit, you crazy you think your horse a racehorse."

A trailer pulls up. In the back, a big chestnut-bronze thoroughbred.

A group of men ambles through the grass with another thoroughbred, this one midnight black, leg muscles flexing visibly with every step.

"Let's get it on," someone shouts.

Black inner-city cowboys have been racing their horses at the Speedway since before even the old-timers can remember.

"Some things just always been around," says one Speedway regular, gray and stooped, moving through the crowd. "It's what we do."

Speedway lore dates the races to early last century, when black stable hands who worked for wealthy equestrians would bring their mounts here for a little weekend racing. A ritual was born, and the tradition has endured.

For years black cowboys bought horses at livestock auctions in New Holland, Pa., and cared for them at stables in North and West Philadelphia. Many of the cowboys bought horses as hobbies in their retirement, taking them for weekend rides through the neighborhood and across Fairmount Park's many trails. Today a dwindling number of cowboys still buy aging racehorses--many of which would otherwise be killed--and give them a second racing life.

For generations, kids more interested in horses than in hanging on street corners have spent their summers in city stables "shoveling shit," as they put it, and dreaming of one day riding at the Speedway. The action starts as soon as the ground softens each spring.

Over the decades, legends were made. And some are still in the making.

There were the jockeys. Boo, Parrot, Devon and Jerome. They all could ride, say the old-timers.

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1. Richard said... on Jan 8, 2012 at 01:29PM

“Horse racing article”

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