Fairplex Is a Center of Patriotic Passion

Flags. American flags hanging everywhere. Men, women and children wearing T-shirts emblazoned with flags. Flag decals pasted on hundreds of people’s shirts. Iggy Puglisi, the jockey, wearing star-spangled, red, white and blue silks in the 10th race. The flag in the racetrack infield hanging at half-staff.

This was the motif Friday at the Los Angeles County Fair’s meet in Pomona, which is one of the few racetracks in the country to run regularly since planes, commandeered by terrorists, slammed into U.S. landmarks in New York and Washington on Tuesday.

Fairplex Park canceled racing Tuesday but has been up and running every day since, rolling toward the conclusion of an 18-day meet on Sept. 24. On Friday, Jay Cohen, the track’s trumpeter, played a patriotic song for the post parade for most of the 12 races. Before the sixth, Cohen played “America the Beautiful,” and the crowd of about 1,000 in the grandstand sang along and applauded.

“There’s nothing wrong with running these races,” said trainer Barry Abrams, who saddled I’monfireforyou, a 5-year-old gray that won the fifth race. “It’s a chance to get your mind off what has happened to the country.”

At noon Friday, half an hour before the first post, the fair observed a moment of silence in honor of the attacks’ dead, a moment that stretched to about three minutes. The $10 admission fee to the fair was waived for the day and people going through the turnstiles were asked to donate $1 or more to the American Red Cross’ relief fund. Each donor got a shirt patch with the flag on it.

Abrams, 47, was born in Minsk, Russia, and grew up in Israel. His father was a butcher and brought the family--his wife and two sons--to New York in 1963, when Abrams was 9. Specifically, they came over in November of 1963.

“I was on a ship from Israel to New York the day [John F. Kennedy] was shot,” Abrams said. “That’s an easy one to remember. Tuesday will be easy too, 911.”

In the late 1970s, Abrams began training harness horses at the Meadowlands in North New Jersey, not far from a newly built World Trade Center, where two of the planes crashed Tuesday. Abrams has been a fixture at California tracks since the late 1980s.

“Nothing’s ever happened in Israel to compare with what happened here this week,” Abrams said. Fairplex will continue to run this weekend, whereas Belmont Park and the Meadowlands, both within 20 miles of lower Manhattan, will remain closed.

“They should close,” Abrams said, “but I think the only reason that football and baseball have shut down is because of TV and transportation.”

There was a bomb threat at Fairplex on Wednesday, resulting in the cancellation of one race and contributing to a 60% drop in handle. There was a drop-off--compared to the same day last year--of 600 fans, but since then the crowds have approached the 5,000 mark, about what the on-track attendance was on these days a year ago. Thursday’s handle rebounded, with the $5.2-million on-and off-track total bettering last year’s betting by about $800,000.

The stake that was lost Tuesday was run Friday, with Debonair Joe emerging from the claiming ranks at Del Mar to win the $50,000 Beau Brummel by two lengths.

Warren’s Whistle won the other stake, the $50,000 Pio Pico. The filly gave trainer Mel Stute his third win in the stake and the first since he won in 1982-83.

In Northern California, Bay Meadows has reopened after closing Wednesday.

In New York, Belmont Park’s weekend cancellations included five major Breeders’ Cup prep races--today’s Ruffian, Jerome and Belmont Breeders’ Cup Handicaps, and Sunday’s Matron and Futurity. Horses from California, Kentucky and elsewhere would have been unable to be flown to New York for those races. Belmont Park did not say whether the stakes would be rescheduled.

D.G. Van Clief, president of the Breeders’ Cup, said Friday that the 18th running of the Breeders’ Cup--eight races worth $13 million--would go on as scheduled at Belmont Park on Oct. 27.