An article written a year ago on an American site..!!!!
Real smooth, boss," Pete Shelton said after galloping the gelding through a workout.
Plesa, 59, started hot-walking horses and filling bags of clover for 50 cents when he was 5 years old. His father was a jockey and one of the first trainers at Calder. His wife's father was a jockey, and her brothers are trainers.
Plesa's daughter, studying equine science at the University of Kentucky, longs to become a trainer. But he hopes she finds a different passion.
His livelihood, and a way of life, is vanishing.
The sport of kings once had a regal atmosphere to match the magnificence of the animals. Presidents and playboys, moguls and movie stars came to tracks in jackets and ties and fancy dresses to watch Man O'War, Citation, Secretariat. They sat in their name-plated boxes and dined at the Turf Club. Aristocrats owned horses as a hobby.
These days, tracks across the country are in trouble. Maryland racing, which includes the Preakness Stakes, was ready to shut down Dec. 31 until the governor orchestrated a Dec. 22 deal that includes state bailout money. In South Florida, Hialeah, once a jewel, was closed for eight years; it's trying to revive with unfashionable quarter horse racing. Gulfstream's corporate owner, which also owns Santa Anita and Pimlico, was in bankruptcy and lost $23 million on racing last quarter.
At Calder, the motley crowds are as small as the prize purses. Maybe 2,000 spectators in T-shirts and baseball caps watch races that pay $12,000. The grandstand is empty except for a few senior citizens. The wagering clerks and food stand workers have a faraway gaze as they wait for a customer to place a bet or buy a slice of pizza. The silence is broken by gray-skinned bettors cursing at TV screens simulcasting races from other deserted tracks.
Outside, the patchy grass of the once-lush paddock is ringed by wilting impatiens. Worthless tickets skitter in the breeze. The bugler's tune echoes across the finish line.
"It's a dying sport," Plesa said. He closes his eyes for a second, and tries not to sound wistful. "It hurts to see how this place has deteriorated."
But stroll 50 yards away from the racetrack into the year-old Calder Casino and it's like leaving a dilapidated amusement park and entering a swanky nightclub.
The floors are lined with thick, colorful carpet. The lighting is soft and low. Pop music is pumped throughout the warehouse-sized room. There are free soft drink stations, plus the Twin Spires Tavern and Front Runners Cafe. Employees are attentive, perky.
The main attraction is the array of slot machines, row upon row of blinking, blinging consoles called Kitty Glitter, Stinkin' Rich, DaVinci Diamonds, Secrets of Stonehenge, Zeus, Cleopatra, Power Strike. They have a cartoon quality, like video games, except they sound like money. Patrons sit in cushy chairs and push a button, transfixed by the scrolling icons.
Horses, made of flesh and blood, have fallen behind the machines.
They will never catch up, said Bob Jarvis, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University and an expert on gambling and sports. Horse racing had its heyday, as did knights and milkmen, but will probably be extinct within 20 years.
Jarvis posits that horse racing, dog racing and jai alai were created for the purpose of gambling. As gambling options proliferated over the past two decades with Indian gaming palaces, poker rooms, lotteries, online betting -- you can even bet on when an NFL quarterback will throw an interception -- people lost interest in traditional parimutuels.
When South Florida voters approved slots in 2005 and 2008, state lawmakers told track owners they could only build casinos if they kept the racing side of their operation open. Politicians needed a cover of respectability over naked, all-out gambling dens. Thus were born racinos, and a strange, hostile compact between horsemen, who need the life support of slot income, and owners, who would rather pull the plug.
"It's like telling the auto industry that it must save the buggy industry and the craftsmen who make the wheels and whips," Jarvis said. "Track owners would love to get rid of the horses. They're expensive and labor-intensive; they take up a huge amount of land; they smell. The slot machine doesn't eat, never gets sick, never complains about its health plan, always works on Christmas
The shotgun marriage means owners such as Churchill Downs, the corporation that runs Calder, have no incentive to invest money in racing. The gleaming new casino is the main act; the racetrack is an afterthought. Calder also has its Studz Poker Room. Churchill Downs even makes a bigger profit off an online bettor than one who comes to the track.
The paint is peeling on Calder's barns; the awnings are mildewed. Drains are clogged, rails broken. Plesa can't stand the shabbiness.
"I've been trying to get this thing fixed for six months," he said, kicking a half-rotted stable door that is coming off its hinges. "A horse could cut his leg open, but they don't care. They only care about the casino. Corporate greed is killing us."
He laments the sport's other failings: The lack of marketing, TV presence and a national commissioner.
Now it's tough to make much money. He does the math: In a $12,000 race, the winner earns $7,200. The trainer and jockey get their 10 percent, $720 each. That leaves $5,720 net to the horse, which is lucky to win four races per year. Yet it costs $30,000 per year to maintain a horse.
Calder's dwindling purses -- chopped another 10 percent in November -- forced Plesa to take half his four dozen horses to the Monmouth, N.J., track the past four summers in search of bigger paydays.
In Florida, where the thoroughbred industry is valued at $5 billion, the quality of horses and races has declined.
"There are too many cheap horses at Calder who should be running at a fair somewhere," said Larry Kelly, a former trainer who owns a van company.
Said veterinarian Bob O'Neil: "You've got people here cutting corners on care. The bedding is not as thick. They skimp on medicine, skip vitamin shots. If it costs $4,000 for surgery and the horse is worth $10,000, they're not going to do it."
Then there's the cost of paying the 2,000 workers of Calder's sprawling backside. Plesa has resisted laying off any of his 20 employees, but he's reduced their hours. His most dedicated is assistant trainer Frank Perez, son of a Mexican farmer.
"Like my ancestors prayed for rain, I'm praying for these tracks not to close," Perez said as he drove around the backside in a golf cart, greeting everybody with a smile. "What would all these people do?"
