My Trip To Fairmount Park

Traveling over the weekend to Indianapolis to visit a suddenly very ill relative I found myself on I-70 just east of St. Louis in Collinsville, Illinois and driving right by Fairmount Park.

Since Fairmount is on my list of possible destinations I made a short detour off the Interstate to take a look. It had been 20 years since my last visit.

There were about 100 cars in the parking lot in front of the grandstand attending the simulcasts. Given the time which was 6 p.m. Sat. afternoon, this number was a bit of a pleasant surprise. Presume this meant about 200 attendees still there after an afternoon of betting.

I wanted to take a look at the backstretch, and noticed the stable gate off in the distance. I drove up to the guard shack, explained I lacked an Illinois licence, would my Kansas license allow me to make a short tour? The request puzzled the old guard a bit, and then a young fellow appeared out of the shack and said "Hop in my truck. I'll take you around."

This fellow was about 35 years old and he was talkative and very enthusiastic about racing. "Place is kinda run down", he said, though my observation was that Fairmount looked to be a fairly typical older back stretch on quick perusal. Zero humans back there, showing level of horse care on a Saturday evening. About what I've come to expect of horse people.

We went to the ship in barn. "That's were you'd be stalled initially". The barn neat enough though dark and depressing with claustrophobic 12 x 10 stalls painted deep forest green with walls rising about 20 feet. Stall entrances face out into the weather with a porch railing surrounding the shedrow. I was considering this scene with wind and cold blowing in in mid winter.

The guard companion never stopped talking in process volunteered a complete recent history of Fairmount. Apparently the track almost bankrupted and closed in 2000 but was rescued at the last minute when purchased by a fellow whose name I failed to pick up described as a Purina Feeds billionaire now age 77. The guard said this fellow bought Fairmount with a view to having his own training center to train for the Derby. Indeed in the middle of everyting stood one brand new barn nicely equipped with huge stalls -as they looked from the road -stabling the track owner's horses.

I got a good glimpse of the 1 mile dirt oval as we drove off. Looked like a nice racetrack as I was visualizing galloping around it instead of my pasture every morning. I asked the cost of off season boarding at Fairmount. It's free. But, all in all, a depressing stall and barn situation if you're a horse, even though I had trouble getting Fairmount out of my mind as I drove on to Indianapolis as a decent situation and training facility for someone without a big bank roll looking to train a horse.

Fairmount's future prospects? Everyone was buzzing about the Mike Ditka group getting Hawthorne slots. Fairmount gets 15% of slots revenue. I received the impression the track would close without that revenue as Fairmount obviously is presently on lifesupport and another eye opener on the state of horse racing this time in a metro area of 3 million.

Below photos of Fairmount that I googled, starting with trainer John Witthauer explaining state of racing at Fairmount with horses in background. Left click to enlarge.


















Training:
Fri. 10/17: Rained again. both horses were trotted 1 mile under tack over standing water in the pasture after yesterday's tough riderless w/o.
Sat. morning 10/18: Wanted tough w/o prior to my trip. Both horses were galloped riderless on the muddy pasture track. Probably 9 x 3f as fast as conditions allowed. It was another tough w/o. They were steaming at the end.
Sun. 10/19: Off
Mon. 10/20: Off.