How I Got Hooked on Racing: TDN’s Sue Finley, Bill Finley and J.N. Campbell

[Wandering Eyes]

For the past two weeks, we have been telling you how some of racing's biggest names fell in love with the sport. Now it's our turn. Here are some of the stories behind the bylines you see every day in the TDN.

Sue Finley, Publisher
Myparents both loved to go to the racetrack, and they would drag me and my brother when we were young. I was completely bored by it. But when I was 15, they told me that an 18-year-old jockey was going for the Triple Crown on a horse named Affirmed, and I found it fascinating that someone pretty much my age was about to achieve something so incredible. I went with my parents and my best friend, and I still remember where we sat-section R on the third floor of the Belmont grandstand. We went back and forth to the paddock all day, saw the horses and jockeys up close, and marveled at the huge posters decorating the walls at Belmont about how the Thoroughbred racehorse was the fastest animal in the world. And when Affirmed and Steve Cauthen came down the stretch, hanging on to a slim lead over Alydar, we screamed our heads off. I was hooked, and we started going to the races every weekend, and I learned everything I could about handicapping and pedigrees.

My parents were $2 bettors, and nothing made my father happier than to go to the track with $10, and come home with $12, “after gas and tolls,” as he'd say. “Where else can you have a day out and end up with more money than where you started?” he'd ask people.

Six years later, as I was graduating from NYU with a degree in journalism, I went out to Belmont Park and asked if they needed a free intern on their press staff. I've worked in horse racing pretty much every day since.

 

Bill Finley, columnist
With an older brother and father who loved the sport, I can remember going to the racetrack when I was six or seven.  I would often go with my dad, who would give me maybe $10 to bet with for the day. Largely betting in favorites to show, I won money the first 11 times I went to the track. Easy game? Right?

Bill Finley | Sue Finley Photo

My family was living in Philadelphia at the time and we made frequent to Garden State, Atlantic City, Delaware Park and the racetrack formerly known as Keystone. But I liked all sports back then and was a rabid fan of the Phillies, Eagles, 76ers and Flyers. The track was fifth on the list.

That changed for me when I was 11 years old and was hit by a car and broke my femur on my right leg. It took months for me to recover, which included a long stint in a pediatric rehabilitation hospital in Atlantic City. I was placed in a body cast.

After several months I still had a cast on, but a smaller one and I was finally able to get around on crutches. To celebrate my release from the hospital, my parents decided to treat me to a trip to Saratoga. I had never been before.

As luck would have it, they picked the week that a horse named Secretariat was entered in the 1972 Sanford Stakes.  He was not even the favorite in the race. Linda's Chief was. But, even at this early point in his career, some were saying that Secretariat was on his way to stardom and I came to expect that he was going to put on a show. He won the Sanford and I was sold. He, of course, became my favorite horse and I would see him run later that same year in the Garden State Stakes.

I would have been a racing fan had it not been for Secretariat, but my love affair with him was what moved me into the super-fan category. I saw his 1973 Preakness and Belmont in person and was mesmerized by his Belmont, the greatest performance in the history of the sport.

The '70s were a great time to be a racing fan. You had Seattle Slew, Affirmed, Forego, Ruffian, Spectacular Bid and so many others. I liked them all, but not in the way that I liked Secretariat. If not for him, I don't think I would have made a career as a turf writer. Thanks, Big Red.

 

J.N. Campbell, Staff Writer
I started a new job at the Kentucky Horse Park while I was in graduate school for history in Lexington. I didn't know really anything about horses or racing, but I was interested in museums after doing an internship at the Smithsonian.

The entry-level position was the chance to be what they call a museum technician which means you assist with the care and handling of objects.

The day I started at the International Museum of the Horse the curator told me she had some exhibit cleaning that I could do. She takes me to this case and inside were the Triple Crown trophies of Secretariat and Seattle Slew. So, I polished them. Once I was done she told me to follow her. We go into the Calumet trophy room and she says “hey, we can't stop now, you're on a roll!”

When lunch came around the curator told me that if I wanted to eat out back that I might enjoy seeing the horses that were part of the Hall of Champions. I had no clue what she was talking about. She said the latest member was arriving that day and he was pretty special. It was Cigar.

Getting to see him up close and learn about the history of this sport really resonated with me. I went to Keeneland that same year, stood there in the paddock, watched the post parades and I was hooked. That was 25 years ago and I'm still as enamored as the day I got to polish those trophies and first saw Cigar.

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