portland oregon

Locks on the Doors; Portland Meadows is closing.
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Locks on the Doors; Portland Meadows is closing.

“You think they’ll run here next year?”

Just past the finish line. The toteboard is still there, and to it’s right, the old Portland Meadows Golf Clubhouse. There was a 9 hole course in the infield for years.

From the time I started working at Portland Meadows in 2006, every Summer that familiar question came up hundreds of times.  “You think they’ll run here next year?”  My answer was usually the same to everyone.  “I think so.  I hope so.”

Dr. Jack Root who has been a long time owner/breeder/trainer/veterinarian in Oregon told me once “Jason, I’ve been coming here for thirty years, and every year I hear from countless people that Portland Meadows is closing.  It’s been closing for thirty years!”  But then Dr. Root followed that statement up with another.  “What will happen is some day, I think several years from now, we’ll show up one day, and there will be locks on the doors.  That’s when we’ll know it’s finally closed.”

Well for me, this past Sunday, when I walked up to the front doors and saw the locks, Dr. Root’s prognostication finally hit home.  I only stayed there for maybe thirty minutes or so on Sunday.  Walked around and saw the grass growing over the main track.  The inner rail torn down in places.  The lights removed from the toteboard.  The old golf course clubhouse empty.

PM from out front. The neon horse was still running, but the front doors are now locked.

I talked with one of the security guards who I’d known from my time at Portland Meadows.  He said the day before was the last day of simulcasting.  This coming Saturday would be the last day of poker.  Then January 1, the new owners, a logistics company of some kind, would take over ownership.  They’ll turn the property into some kind of trucking/shipping facility, the grandstand will go down, and life in North Portland will go on.  I’ve seen it in other places.  Where my beloved Longacres once stood there is now a Boeing building and a bunch of walking trails.  Where Playfair in Spokane once ran races there is now a business park.  Yakima Meadows is still standing but it looks condemned and I believe is only used to house motorcycle races.

Portland Meadows opened on September 14, 1946 and was the first North American Thoroughbred track to offer night racing according to the track about page on the website.  The track survived a flood in 1948, a fire in 1970, and several different ownership groups.  Gary Stevens career took off there and in 1982-83 he won 126 races before heading down to Southern California and creating a Hall of Fame career.  Bill Shoemaker won the Portland Mile in 1989.  There were other great things that happened on the track, but those things are all just PM’s biography.

To me it will always be about the people.  I used to love to walk the backstretch and talk with wonderful trainers like my friend Ben Root.  Folks like Dr. Ryland Harwood who was a career dentist and became a trainer, owner, and breeder in his retirement.  Small barns like Bubba Bullene, and GD Khalsa, who despite never having a huge stables, are fabulous horsemen.  Jockeys like Joe Crispin, and Mark Anderson, Javier Matias and Juan Gutierrez.  Portland always had many female riders as part of the colony.  Kathy Mayo won several titles there.  Shawna Barber, Becky Abernathy, April Boag, Connie Doll, Debbie Hoonan, Marijo Terleski, Shawna Whiteside, Darlene Braden, Anne Sanguinetti, and in recent years Kassie Guglielmino and Eliska Kubinova.

Whatever track I go to I always make sure to make friends with the jockey agents.  They always have the best stories and usually have some useful information.  Steve Peery was an agent there for years and became one of my best friends.  Keith Drebin was always fun to talk with.  I remember at the first Portland Meadows Golf Tournament I played in, Mike Delnick was the leading agent and was in our group.  I muttered at the first hole “Well I hope we can win today guys.”  Delnick looked at me and said “Don’t worry, I’m keeping score.  We’re gonna win.”  I laughed and then he said “Jason, the most dangerous wood in my bag isn’t my driver.  It’s my pencil.”   We won the tournament by a stroke.

I also used to love to hang out with the tote room guys.  Brothers Lucas and Ben.  One racing night they were having a contest who could fit the most grapes in their mouth.  So I participated and stuffed like 10 of those buggers in my yapper before eating them.  After I finished them I ran upstairs to call the next race.  As the horses reached the gate I could feel the acid from the grapes bubbling up in my stomach.  I reached down and hit the mute button and let out a big burp.  Then I heard my burp echo over the loud speakers.  I looked down to my mic pack and saw the light was still green.  The TV department even made a video of it which you can see HERE.  It’s pretty gross, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I know the racing wasn’t world class or much class at all.  But it was our track.  I called those races like they were the most important races in the country because I knew to the owners, trainers, jockeys, and gamblers, they were important.  I always felt a sense of pride that when an owner would watch the DVD of their horse winning a race, even years from now, that it was going to be me who got to describe the victory and call their horse.  What a privilege.

When I left Portland Meadows in late 2014 to pursue another announcing opportunity, I remember being very sad about it.  Even though I was taking the next step in my career (which I would of course completely blow), I didn’t like leaving.  I remember tearing up saying goodbye to Jerry and Vestal in the main office.  Shaking hands with Will who was my boss and is now my friend.  I get emotional thinking about Will because he always supported me even though my professional time at Portland Meadows was the height of my personal life mental health struggles.  One year my panic and agoraphobia got so bad that I would get crippling anxiety if I had to be far away from my car or medical help.  So Will set up a huge TV and a microphone in the downstairs office so I could call off the TV and be close to the parking lot and the nurses station.  I eventually made it back upstairs, but I told him countless times if he needed to fire me I would understand.  I look back at those times and feel bad that it was such a struggle.  But I also now have such an incredible appreciation for a boss who didn’t give up on me and ALWAYS had my back.

That’s why seeing Portland Meadows close up hurts so bad.  I haven’t gotten a paycheck from there in 5 years.  But I still am friends with many people from there.  I still have memories of that tiny booth.  The view of Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helens from that booth.  The good times and the horrible times.  So many of both were had on that plot of land at 1001 Schmeer Road.

The two tracks most dear to my heart have shuttered.  I love horse racing and hope to be involved with it in some way until my final furlong.  Just gotta keep working to make sure it can keep going, and god forbid, maybe thrive again.  I urge everyone who loves the game and might particularly love a certain track.  Treasure the times there.  Take photos.  Take videos.  Make memories.  When and if the doors get locked at your track, the photos, videos, and memories will be what you have to take with you.

 

A tour I did of Portland Meadows in 2011 can be seen HERE .  My youtube page there has several videos from PM as well.

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My Best Day at the Races

Well since yesterday I wrote about my worst day at the races, it seemed only fitting to also write about my best day.  I actually thought about a few different options for what I would label my BEST day at the races.  There was hogging the Pick 4 on a monday night in October of 2005.  There was hitting the Longacres Mile trifecta in August of 2005 with a 60/1 shot on top.  There was all those days with my dad at old Longacres.  There was calling races at River Downs, or Louisiana Downs.  But instead I chose a day from Portland Meadows.  My last day at Portland Meadows to be exact.  December 28, 2014.

There weren’t any big races that day or really anything memorable on the track or in my calls for that matter.  But I remember it being an emotionally fulfilling day for a lot of reasons.  The first live racecall I ever made was in that booth at Portland Meadows back on January 8, 2006.  A Colt Named Sue won that race and I remember almost everything about that first race call, including how awful it was.  Portland Meadows gave me a chance to call some races early on and it allowed me to make a demo tape and get hired by River Downs in March of 2006.  Midway through that first summer at River Downs I was told that Mike O’Brien, the regular announcer at PM, was not going to be coming back cause the schedule was shifting more to weekday racing and Mike had a regular 9-5 job.   When I was offered the job I remember being so thrilled.  I was 5 months into being a racecaller and I now had two great jobs that ran perfectly opposite to one another.  I was a full-time racecaller.

I did two seasons at Portland Meadows as just the announcer and a few months after I left River Downs in 2008 (you read about that yesterday) they offered me a year round position as guest services manager/media contact and announcer.  It was great, I had health insurance for the first time in my racing career (also the last time lol) and learned a ton about management from my boss Will who now is a big wig with NYRA and one of the smartest people I know.

I eventually gave up the full time job cause I went to grad school starting in 2012, but they let me stick around and be just the announcer.   From 2010 to 2013 I struggled with many of those same anxiety/depression issues I’ve written about.  It was a lot of peaks and valleys as far as my mood, but overall I did ok.  But for some reason when our 2014 season started I was doing well and feeling well.  And something strange happened.  I really started to like racecalling again.  My passion for calling was at an all-time high and I was really feeding off those feelings.  Studying and prepping harder, warming up better, memorizing better, just really doing my best.   I was feeling so good about racecalling that when the job at Louisiana Downs came up and was offered to me, I took it.

Portland Meadows had cut from 76 days down to 39 and it just seemed like the next logical step.  It was more days, more money, better racing, more exposure, etc, etc, etc.   So I gave my boss about a months notice and told him my last day would be December 28th.  I’ll admit it was kind of fun being a lame duck announcer.  I made a few YOLO calls, some impressions, just was having fun with it all.  I remember one day Frank Stronach showed up with his whole crew of corporate guys.  They stopped by the booth while getting a tour from Will and Mr. Stronach, who I’d never seen there in the nine years I worked there, said to me “I hear you are leaving us?”  I nodded yes and said it was nice to meet you and thank you for employing me for nine years.  I sincerely meant it too.  He always got a lot of flack from some of the horseman and fans at PM, but I always felt like that group supported our little track.  But for me the date cuts just meant not enough income to survive.  lad1

So to the track for my Best Day, December 28, 2014.  I got there and the office crew had a cake made for me.  The tote guys got me a real nice card (see right).  Even just walking up to the booth that day I had bettors pull me aside and wish me luck and say some really nice things that meant a lot.  I had always taken a lot of pride being the announcer at Portland Meadows.  So it was cool to get that appreciative feedback for the work I’d done.

All of that was great, but the real reason this was my best day at the races was because I made such an effort to be present and in the moment.  Anxiety is generally fear of what will happen, not what is happening.  I knew in my heart I wanted to savor this day cause I was never going to get to do this job at this place ever again.  So each race I made sure to enjoy the feeling of talking over the PA system.  Enjoy the excitement of the people out front cheering as the horses came down the lane.  Enjoy getting to use a talent I had worked a decade on improving.  Enjoy getting to say the names of these jockeys and trainers one last time.  I really made such a point to soak it all in throughout the day.  I was so thankful and when we got to the last race, I really got emotional.  This was the ending of a nine year chunk of my life.  This was leaving a city I liked and the few friends I had.  And when they crossed the line and the last race went official, I just said thank you very much for letting me call these races.   Then clicked the mic and headed downstairs.

I cried a little hugging our Assistant General Manager Jerry cause I love Jerry.  And I cried a little saying goodbye to Will cause I love Will.  But I got in my car and drove out of the parking lot and hit the road that same night to Louisiana.  Two days later I was at Santa Anita park.  Two more after that I was in El Paso.  Two more after that I was in Shreveport.   But to this day I can still remember that feeling of calling those last races.  It taught me such a great lesson in savoring moments that you know might be important.  I”m glad I still have memories of my best day at the track.