A man stood in front of a row of televisions on a recent Saturday afternoon, and it looked like he was having more fun than anyone in Tucson. He was older, lively, looked like he’d had a couple. Then the man pumped his fists and screamed as large animals raced in a circle with tiny men on their backs.
“Seven, seven, seven, seven,” he chanted, loudly, allowing every word to be heard and every inch of himself to be seen. “Seven, seven, seven, seven, seven.”
To his right and a few feet back stood another man, in front of the same televisions, quieter, only with the same sense of desperation and hope. Behind them, live jockeys on live horses were preparing for a race in front of a busy grandstand.
“Seven, seven, seven,” the first man begged.
The seven horse at Santa Anita Park, Kristo, was shown on one of several televisions at the Rillito Park Racetrack, a relic of Tucson’s past, refurbished and buffed shiny to welcome new guests in 2015. Any other horse, the other man hoped, and the second Kristo’s wet nose crossed the finish line, both men threw their hands up, one in celebration, one in frustration.
Kristo, 11½-to-1, wins. The cheering man looked down at his betting slip — betting slips — and licked his lips.
The loser ripped his up his slips.
Rarely do fortunes change so quickly in Tucson. You come to Tucson so your fortunes don’t change. Or maybe once they have changed. But when you get here, you don’t expect the highs and lows of a winning ticket or a busted fortune.
And that’s where Rillito Park comes in. Or, more accurately, comes back in.
On the verge of being converted by the county into a massive soccer complex, the 72-year old racetrack was, to borrow a horse racing term, being put out to pasture. The Rillito Park Foundation was formed in 2011 to preserve and enhance the track, the multipurpose fields and the historic Jelks Stud Farm. After growing from four charter members to 12, the group has been at work.
For the 2015 Spring Meet — which concludes live action with this weekend’s Adios Amigos Festival, starting on Friday at 3 p.m. — the RPF brought in veteran horse racing consultant Michael Weiss, refurbished the track surface, enhanced concessions (including a partnership with El Charro) and brought in racing experts to bolster the race-day experience.
Weiss has spearheaded the effort to introduce off-track betting, with live simulcasting from tracks across the country.
“This is a passion for them,” Weiss said of the Rillito Park Foundation. “They really believe Tucson needs this.”
Weiss was charged with the task of providing CPR to a once-thriving venue, the country’s oldest quarter horse track, the place where the photo finish was pioneered, the track where Bob Baffert got the first of his 2,551-and-counting wins.
The park had fallen into disrepair over the years, though, particularly as the recent battle between soccer and horse racing enthusiasts lingered. It was in desperate need of a face-lift — like the television show “Bar Rescue,” only with a horse racing venue.
“Barn Rescue?”
“It was kind of a no-brainer,” said Rillito Park Foundation President Jaye Wells. “You just look at these crowds. This place has roots. The shame of it is, it was kept as Tucson’s best secret.”
He used the same words to describe the new partnership between what seems to be the most obvious of partners. For the first time, Weiss has joined Rillito Park with the vaunted University of Arizona Race Track Industry Program. UA students make up a good portion of Rillito’s workforce.
“It’s a working lab for us,” said Sarah Crane, the admissions director at Rillito and a junior at Arizona majoring in equine sciences. “It’s a unique opportunity for students — especially for those who haven’t worked at a racetrack before — and even for someone like me, who has. Being thrown right in at a little racetrack like this, you really get a chance to dip into it, work in it, see if it’s something you want to do.”
Crane has been in the industry her whole life: Her parents owned racehorses, she’s co-owned a couple horses, and even married a jockey. She was enticed by the UA’s Race Track Industry Program, which has produced some of the top workers and trainers in the industry — including Hall of Famer Baffert and Todd Pletcher — and which continues to place people in positions at racetracks across the country. Weiss said that recent students have landed jobs at famous venues such as Santa Anita Park in California and Monmouth Park in New Jersey.
“The reason I went to UA is you can get the better jobs with a degree (from) here,” Crane said. “People take you more seriously.”
And that’s really the goal for the backers of the Rillito Park Racetrack, too.
They want this venture to be taken seriously.
And nothing is more serious than money on the line, fortunes won and fortunes lost.
