Charles Town Racing Still in the Running

CHARLES TOWN, W.Va. — Thoroughbreds have raced in this town founded by George Washington’s brother since the 1780s, when riders and owners competed for purses paid in English pounds.

And 200 years have done little to diminish the enthusiasm for fast horses and a friendly wager since Col. Charles Washington and his presidential brother raced in what is now West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle.

“We just completed our best year ever,” said Doug Stewart, marketing director for Charles Town Races, a six-furlong, or three-quarter mile, track located about 60 miles northwest of Washington, D.C.

“The amount of money bet at the windows has been rising for the past three years.”

The average daily handle per bettor last year was $136.76--a record at Charles Town Races and more than tracks located in metropolitan areas with populations 1,000 times greater than Charles Town’s 3,000.

The year-round track had an average daily attendance of 3,197 and took in $436,864 a day during its five-day-a-week schedule in 1988.

“We get a broad-based crowd,” said Stewart. “We get bums in here and we get corporation presidents and real, live millionaires.”

While other tracks built during the same era, such as the Detroit Fairgrounds and Narragansett Park in Rhode Island, are long gone, Charles Town continues to prosper.

The track has turned a post-tax profit for every year since 1980. Last year’s pre-tax profit of just over $1 million was up more than 8 percent over the figure for 1987, according to Madeline Davis, the track’s office manager.

Charles Town, which provides 400 direct full-time jobs and about 200 more if concessions are counted, is Jefferson County’s largest employer.

With jockeys, trainers and grooms, who are paid by horse owners, about 1,200 people earn their living at the track, out of a population of about 30,000 in the county.

But times haven’t always been this good at the old Charles Town Race Track, built in 60 days at a cost of $160,000.

The first two meetings after opening on Dec. 2, 1933 were financial failures and the track went into receivership.

Albert J. Boyle, of Baltimore, came to the rescue by persuading creditors that he could make the track profitable by pulling in bettors from his hometown and Washington, D.C.

Boyle, who owned the track until his death in 1957, kept it going with his own money until the track turned its first profit in 1941.

Designed by H. Harold Riggins, who was involved with the construction of the Hialeah track in Florida, the Charles Town Race Track resembled Hialeah’s Spanish style with its stuccoed concrete and red-tiled trim. Spanish cypress imported from Florida was used for the clubhouse bar.

When World War II ended, racetrack attendance nearly doubled and the amount of money wagered did too. A little more than $37,000 was bet at the track in 1933. By 1958, that amount had grown to $23.5 million. Last year, bettors wagered a track record $109.7 million.

Despite an average daily purse distribution of just $36,617 in 1988--a 3% increase over 1987--Charles Town is managing to stay in the race against larger competitors such as Garden State Park in New Jersey and Penn National and Philadelphia Park in Pennsylvania, which all saw their average purses shrink last year.

“I come up here at least three times a week, every chance I get,” said Bill Adams, 50, of Alexandria, Va., as he left a Charles Town betting window during a recent Wednesday. “I like the shorter track and the long-shot payoffs.”

Others enjoy making a $2 bet while dining on filet mignon in the track’s air-conditioned club house.

“We don’t come very often, but the food’s good and we enjoy watching the horses,” said Bill Shuck, 69, of Frostburg, Md., as he watched another one of his favorites lose on a small television screen on the end of his table.

“I certainly don’t come here because I pick any winners.”

Charles Town is the home of Willie Clark, who at 67 is the nation’s oldest, still-active jockey riding at a pari-mutuel track, according to Sam Kanchuger, a spokesman for The Jockey Club in New York.

“I’ve ridden the longer tracks, but they’re too ‘sissified’ for me,” said Clark. “I like to roughhouse and the horses are packed in tight here.

“You have to know what you’re doing. If you don’t get your horse out coming out of the gate, you’ve had it.”

Among the track’s biggest draws is its winter racing. On the mild, sunny December day that Charles Town opened, just three other tracks, located in Louisiana, Texas, and California, ran races during the winter months.

In the early years, fans, who arrived on special trains from Washington, Baltimore and New York, huddled in the grandstand over barrels of burning coke and watched as horses ran through rain, fog and even near-blizzard conditions.

The grandstand is enclosed and heated now, but weather is still a concern.

“If you have a lot of rain or snow, people aren’t going to drive down the mountain to get here,” said Ira Kaplan, a track spokesman. “The weather can make or break a season.”

Some are attracted by Charles Town’s smaller, “bull ring” track which allows horse racing aficionados to see their favorites race down the backstretch without binoculars.

“I’m a lot more aggressive here than I am when I ride on the mile tracks, said Mark Mendon, 29, a jockey who has ridden at tracks in Illinois, Kentucky and Louisiana.

“There are some horses here that can hold their own over in Maryland and other places, but can’t run the distances. That’s why they’re here.”

Kaplan said he doesn’t necessarily mind not being considered in the elite of racing.

“We’re either like the best Triple A ballclub in horseracing or the worst team in the major leagues,” said Kaplan.

“We prefer to see ourselves as the best Triple A ballclub.”