THOROUGHBRED RACING / BILL CHRISTINE : Old Racetracks Fading Away as Economic Truths Take Hold

The racetracks of my youth are fading. Cahokia Downs has been gone for two decades, and, more recently, the owners of Charles Town have said they’re out of business unless an angel drops from the sky.

Cahokia Downs, near East St. Louis, Ill., was a bullring oval devoid of quality racing, but at least it gave Dave Johnson, a fine announcer, his start. Tod Creed, who preceded Johnson, was a fun-loving race caller with a macabre sense of humor.

One Friday night, about an hour after the last race, two bartenders from the track got into a car, and when one of them hit the accelerator, a bomb exploded and killed them both. East St. Louis was a tough town, but those of us who grew up there didn’t know how tough. Because we didn’t travel much, we had no frame of reference. We thought all towns were that way.

Authorities never figured out what the bartenders did to deserve such an end, but it was obviously something that couldn’t have been prevented with a simple apology.

Creed’s ritual after the last race every night was to say to the crowd: “Thank you very much for attending, and please be careful driving home.” The night after the bartenders were killed, the devilish announcer couldn’t resist. “Thank you very much for attending,” he said, “and please be careful starting your cars.”

Charles Town was the first track that I ever traveled to by train. The special race train left Baltimore’s Camden Station, where the Orioles’ new ballpark stands, at twilight and meandered through the mountains of West Virginia, all but dropping you at Charles Town’s door.

The scenic ride included a history lesson or two. The train went by Harper’s Ferry, which I remembered had something to do with the Civil War. I looked up Harper’s Ferry later, and that’s where John Brown, the abolitionist, captured the U.S. arsenal in 1859.

In the club car, high-stake card games were rampant while conductors looked the other way. Small boys made their way from car to car, selling Baltimore newspapers and shouting things like, “The News has got the winners and the scratches!”

As a track, Charles Town was part of the leaky-roof circuit, not much better than Cahokia Downs. But it still had style. For one thing, it had a name like no other track. It wasn’t Charles Town Race Track, or Charles Town Race Course, or Charles Town Downs, or Charles Town Park, or any other probable name. This place was called The Charles Town Races.

Sitting across the street from Charles Town was another track, Shenandoah Downs. They shared a mailbox. How practical, I thought. Charles Town runs its season, then the action shifts to Shenandoah, giving the Charles Town surface a chance to breathe. It was a self-contained circuit, perfectly suited for horsemen. But in 1978, the Shenandoah side of the racing operation was closed, remaining only as a training track.

Charles Town didn’t have anything except sore-legged horses to advertise, so it did the best it could. I remember the PR man sending complimentary bottles of whiskey to many tables. In an era when exotic bets were just learning to walk, Charles Town introduced the Twin Double. Bettors were asked to pick the winners of two races early on the card. Anyone successful with that bet could then exchange the ticket for a bet on two races later. Between halves of the Twin Double, the men’s room looked like the floor of the New York Stock Exchange as bettors with live tickets tried to auction them.

My first chance for a modest score came in the Twin Double one night at Charles Town. I was holding a live ticket after the first two races. I got out of the men’s room with the ticket still in my pocket and exchanged it for a bet on the last two races. The first was a winner, and riding my horse in the last race was Jesse Davidson, who was the national riding champion in 1965 with more than 300 wins.

Our horse--Davidson’s and mine--broke poorly, which is death at Charles Town. The track has a stretch run about the same length as some Beverly Hills living rooms. Davidson came flying with his horse through that abbreviated stretch and just missed at the wire. The moon was blue as the train ride back to Baltimore seemed longer than usual that night. The card games in the club car were played without me.

Charles Town opened in 1933, a Depression year but a time when state governments, desperate for tax revenue, encouraged the building of tracks. Now the West Virginia track appears to be at the end of its 61-year run. There was a county referendum in November, and video lottery terminals for The Charles Town Races were defeated by about 500 votes.

Video lottery terminals, of all things, would have been the plasma that pushed quaint little Charles Town into another season. That is the state of racing’s survival economics as the next century dawns.

Horse Racing Notes

For the second consecutive year, only five horses will run in the Hollywood Starlet. Sardula, a winner at 1-5 odds, chased some horses away last year, and Serena’s Song is the heavy favorite for Saturday’s $250,000 race. Serena’s Song won the Landaluce at Hollywood Park and the Oak Leaf at Santa Anita before she lost by a head to stablemate Flanders in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies at Churchill Downs. Trainer Brian Mayberry, who won with Sardula, will start Urbane, undefeated in two tries, in the 1 1/16-mile race. Kindred Soul drew the rail, and outside her come Urbane, Ski Dancer, Comstock Queen and Serena’s Song. . . . Robert and Beverly Lewis, who race Serena’s Song, have sold their multiple stakes-winning filly, Twice The Vice, to Marty Wygod for an undisclosed price. Twice The Vice, winner of the Del Mar Oaks and the Linda Vista Handicap at Santa Anita, was bought for $130,000 at auction by the Lewises last year as an unraced 2-year-old. Twice The Vice earned $269,416 under trainer Ray Bell and switches to Ron Ellis’ barn. . . . Kent Desormeaux has dropped his appeal of a five-day suspension and will begin serving the days Sunday. Because of California’s designated-race rule, Desormeaux, Hollywood Park’s leading jockey, will still be able to ride heavily favored Afternoon Deelites on Sunday in the $500,000 Hollywood Futurity.