Time Stands Still at the Races

Time Stands Still at the Races

By Sean Clancy

Clancy family memories: Sean, Miles and Annie.

Photo by Doug Gehlsen of Middleburg Photo.

My family told time by win pictures. After winning a race, there we were, posing for a black and white print from Mr. Freudy or Marshall Hawkins or Peter Winants. Then James Carr and Catherine French. Color! And now, Tod Marks or Douglas Lees or Alice Porter or Doug Gehlsen or one of the other precision-clicking photographers.

In lean years, there were no family portraits, the horses were slow and time was forgotten. In strong years, every weekend felt like a trip to Sears for the family portrait—we’ll take the white-rail, green hedge, red and white flag backdrop and the silver bowl as a prop. Dress up, squeeze in, stand up, smile, cheese!

There we are in wool suits, hats and mittens to match, at Glenwood Park, my oldest sister reaching for my shoulder as I turned and gawked at the silver bowl, held by my mother after Dad rode Rock Port II or one of the other house horses to a win. Michele was gone a year later, nobody to keep me from ogling over silver bowls and win pictures, which I guess has never waned.

There we are at Delaware Park. My brother, Joey, holding the shank of a promising 3-year old colt, working off a Rawlings baseball glove purchased by Dad in advance, the layaway plan. Joey still has that glove. My sister, Sheila, stands awkwardly at the end of the line, in a home-sewn dress. Now I know why she looks so awkward. I’m again gawking at the jockey, the horse, the silver. Nothing changes.

There we are with Red Raven in the early 1980s. I’m riding. A 13-year-old kid, stars in his eyes, fear in his throat. The fastest race pony in all the world. The first time I won anything. Ten wins, four seconds in 14 starts. This is easy. The only win picture missing is from our first race when I stood up at the wire and the stirrup fell off the saddle.

The moment, the memory, etched in my mind. I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t surprised. I wasn’t annoyed. I wasn’t angry. I simply said, “I knew it couldn’t be this easy.” I fell off a stride later, the fastest race pony in all the world running over me like a pothole on Foxcroft Road, his toe grab scooping a perfect chunk of my right wrist. Joey sprinted for the pony, my dad sprinted to me. Mr. Freudy’s camera pointed to the ground. Seven stitches came out a week later. The scar stayed forever.

The win photos are strewn about these days. My sister has a few, wedged between inspirational quotes on driftwood at a beach house in Rehoboth. My parents framed some and hung them on their walls, randomly, there’s one of a couple of degenerates at Delaware Park, hey, there’s one of Jackie Kennedy at a Virginia Point-to-Point long since forgotten.

My brother has one framed of him winning the junior race at Fairfax, one of his future wife holding a horse on a summer afternoon and others stashed in photo albums and cardboard boxes. I’ve got an attic full of plastic crates full of win pictures, family portraits, moments in time. Someday I’ll look at them again, remember and reminisce about days gone by and people long since gone.

Standing at the Piedmont Point-to-Point a few weeks ago, I was thinking of win pictures, family portraits as the races ran and the tailgates flowed. There was Jeb and Emily Hannum, the oneman-band of horse trainers, posing with their daughters after Paddy’s Crown won the amateur/ novice timber. Teddy Davies, the son of childhood friends, rode the veteran timber horse.

An hour later, another win photo seemed secure until Be Counted nailed Our Legend on the line. That was what the Hannums really wanted. One of their oldest daughter, Chloe, riding a hometrained winner at their local course. It would have fit smoothly on the wall in the house at the crest of Lost Corner Road. Right between Our Climber, Morning Mac and Socks, legends in the Hannum family and a couple of British chasers, icons from the Debenham side.

But, alas, Our Legend finished second, the tick of the photo-finish tock. That’s racing. That’s life.