At the Races Series of rituals keep fans turning out to historic track

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It’s a cool, rainy Wednesday evening at the Bangor Raceway, rare for this summer’s harness racing season. Just a few people stand out by the metal fence that rings the track; more look for prime spots under the grandstand overhang. The dirt on the half-mile track has clumped together, and a truck dragging a specialized rake circles the oval to smooth the surface.

It’s been a dry summer so far – so how the horses react to the mud on the track is a topic of conversation among the spectators. The horses, after all, are used to certain ways.

So are the people.

JoAnn York, her husband Mike, who live in Charleston, and their friend Jack Hart of Bangor huddle around a small square table – their table – inside the Bass Park building. It’s not the weather that has them indoors. It’s just habit.

Meanwhile, another husband and wife team is outside. Fran Colella of Carmel sits in a white plastic picnic chair under the grandstand overhang, her regular spot, while Ralph Colella hangs by the rail and walks back and forth between the metal fence and his wife. She’s the calm one; he likes to pace a little more.

For the Bangor Raceway regulars, the track is a series of rituals that have become ingrained over the years. Many bet the same horses, get their tickets from the same cashiers, sit in the same spot, arrive at the same time. Not everyone has been watching at Bangor for decades, but for most of the regulars, a night at the track has been a habit for many years.

The trotting and pacing horses; the mixed smells of cigarette smoke, french fries, and manure; the smiles in the winner’s circle; the announcer’s voice rising to a fever pitch as the horses race down the stretch; the pavement in the spectator area littered with crumpled losing tickets.

It’s all part of the atmosphere of the track. Now that Bangor Raceway has closed for the summer and the Bangor State Fair has taken over, more questions loom for the 152-year-old park where live racing has been held every year since 1919.

Harness racing has struggled in Maine as purses, handles, and attendance numbers shrink every year. Plans to revitalize the industry come and go. The people who work at the track and with the horses are worried. They make the industry work, but they also need the industry to work for them.

Live racing venues and off-track betting parlors are losing money as gamblers turn to telephone and Internet wagering, Bingo, and scratch tickets. And there’s a chance Bangor Raceway itself could be gone or relocated in a few years.

Meanwhile, as long as there’s a firehouse-loud post-time bell, thousand-dollar trifectas, cheap claiming races, old friends, and beer and hot dogs, the regulars will keep on coming.

Raceway rituals

If you’re looking for Fred Vardamis on a warm summer morning, you probably won’t find him at his home off Buck Street in Bangor. Three times a week the 80-year-old Bangor native walks to the track and takes his morning coffee at Lil’s Lunch, the snack stand in the Bangor Raceway paddock. At one of the wooden picnic tables there, he watches trainers and grooms jog horses around the track.

Vardamis has been a regular at Bangor Raceway for about 40 years. Unlike many of the Bangor regulars, he doesn’t gamble that often.

“There’s bettors, but I’m mostly a lover,” said Vardamis. The most he’s ever won on a ticket was $33. This year Vardamis figures he came out $2 ahead, and he invested his surplus in carrots for the horses.

“It’s a nice atmosphere,” Vardamis said of his morning ritual. “I like to watch the horses jog, be in the fresh air.”

Among the regulars, almost everyone has a ritual. For some it’s a matter of luck. For others, it’s a matter of, well, just keeping things regular.

The day starts differently for everyone. Some get to the track hours before the races to watch the horses jog, see what kind of shape they’re in, check out the condition of the track, or enjoy the sunset over the raceway. Others file in a few minutes before post time, 7:15 p.m. on Wednesdays and Fridays, 1:30 p.m. on Sundays.

Some people claim a white plastic chair from the spectator area and drag it up to the rail and sit for the next few hours, getting up only to place a bet or pick up a snack.

Others head for the Paul’s Express Lounge – an offshoot of the Bangor restaurant – and the wooden picnic tables in the fenced-off beer garden.

One group of regulars sits on the other end of the grandstand, either on benches or in those ubiquitous white plastic chairs, under the grandstand. Fran Colella sits there, as do regulars like John Hopkins and Owen Spaulding.

Some people pace, read the program, and bet, never sitting down.

JoAnn and Mike York arrive at the track with an hour to spare and sit at the same table every day.

“I like the tracks in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania with the clubhouses,” JoAnn said. “I like to sit in the clubhouse. That’s why I like to make this little table. This table’s for us.”

Fran Colella always goes to the same window to place her bets. She doesn’t even know the cashier’s name.

“She’s just a kind person and I gravitate to her,” Colella said.

Roy Willey, a 40-year-old Cherryfield native, also gets his tickets and winnings from the same women every night. It’s a habit he started years ago at the old Lewiston Raceway.

“There was a lady at the $10 window that called me Mr. Cherryfield,” he said with a laugh. “I always went to her. I just sort of know them. They can understand me.”

And after 25 years of betting on horses, Willey understands them.

Pari-mutuel puzzles

Roy Willey was as calm as could be after the first race on a recent Wednesday night card. He leaned against a wall, poring over his program for the next race.

He was also about $773 richer after plunking down $24 for a trifecta box.

No big deal. He’s done it before. He won $3,002 on a ticket at the old Lewiston Raceway.

Willey, a front desk supervisor at the Bar Harbor Quality Inn, has been betting at Bangor two or three nights a week for the past 25 years, driving the 55 miles from home to the track in his ’84 Chevette. He usually bets $10-$20 per race and almost always comes out ahead.

His secret?

“I look at the drivers and the times and the post position,” Willey said. “Heath Campbell’s an excellent driver. I normally bet on horses that are long shots and so that wouldn’t be him.”

Willey has mastered the intricacies of the pari-mutuel betting system, no small feat considering the math involved here. There are win, place, and show bets; quinellas, trifectas, and exactas; pick fives, boxes and wheels.

It’s all a little intimidating. For the first-time bettor, many regulars said, the best trick is to pick a horse or a driver and make a show bet (the bettor wins if the horse finishes in the top three). The show bet, so the saying goes, is the safe bet.

JoAnn York has only been living in Charleston for four years but has been watching the races in her native New Jersey for about 45 years. Mike and JoAnn York, both widowers, were married four years ago and have made Bangor Raceway their habit. She taught her husband and Hart how to bet, and both men do just fine. Actually, with her help, they’ve done great, they said.

That reminds JoAnn York of what happened earlier in the week.

“[Hart] was losing Sunday and he had to go home,” she said. “He said, ‘Here’s $12, you bet for me.’ I bet his horses and I gave him $27.40 tonight.”

Hart shrugs.

“Every time I follow her advice I’m great. Every time I go off on my own…,” he trails off with a sigh.

JoAnn York believes the driver is the key to a good pick. She likes younger drivers because she thinks they take more chances.

“The time can be different, depending on the driver,” she said. “Heath Campbell can get a different time out of a horse than another driver can because some drivers will never pull out. Not too long ago one of the good drivers fell and since he fell I haven’t seen him do well. It really goes on that.”

Other bettors look at a horse’s best times that season, or how consistent the horse has been, or the pole position of the horse and driver.

Stan Gutowski, a Greenfield, Mass.-based freelance harness writer who visits Bangor Raceway during the closing weekend of the meet each year, pays attention to class. For example, he said, if a 7-year-old has made $100,000 in his lifetime and he’s racing in a cheap claiming race where the other horses have made around $6,000, the richer horse is the better bet.

“The horse has been to the wars, he’s been somewhere, he’s won races,” Gutowski said. “If you narrow it down to two horses and he’s one of them, go with him. I’ll bet him on the class factor.”

Fran Colella considers almost every bit of information she can.

“I look at time, I look at conditions, I look at trainers, I look at drivers, I look at post position,” she said. “I look at the last two, three times they were out and what they’ve done, see if they were in the money. I look at everything.”

But you’re not going to get anywhere without a program.

Get with the program

There are lines to place a bet, cash in a ticket, get ice cream, go to the bathroom (fillies and mares to one side, colts and horses to the other). But the first line you encounter at Bangor Raceway may be the most important.

For $1.50 you can pick up a program for that day’s racing card. The small print and cryptic abbreviations are a bit intimidating at first, but don’t walk by this line and think you can win at wagering. Inside this 28-page book (give or take a few pages) is everything you need to know to make some cash and follow the races.

Each race is listed on a page and the horses in each race are listed top to bottom in order of pole position. Read and understand this program and you just might understand the race.

“This horse is from Mexico?” a woman, looking at a program, was overheard asking a man next to her on a Wednesday night. “Oh, I see. Mexico, Maine.”

On the third page of the Bangor Raceway program is a guide to the different lines, starting with the horse’s saddlepad, betting number, and post position number.

On the fifth page of the program is a guide to the symbols – everything from the color and gender of the horse, the track conditions and sizes, the race classes, previous finishing positions, wagering information, and what kind of medicines the horse is on.

So which details to pay attention to and which to leave alone? Everybody has an opinion.

“Everyone has their favorites, but not even the favorites always win,” said Fran Colella. “You have to go by that book.”

Forming new habits

Every Sunday for the past eight years Hal Wheeler has been at Bangor Raceway playing with his Hal Wheeler Downeast Dixieland Band. This year, Wheeler was asked to perform a task that has added to the experience of going to the track.

Before each Sunday race, Wheeler walks across the track with his cornet, a relative of the trumpet. Once he’s in the grassy infield Wheeler plays the familiar notes of the call to the post.

“I’ve never been an official bugler before,” the 64-year-old Bangor resident said with a laugh. “A couple of weeks ago just for fun I played it. One of the investors in the raceway liked that and sent [Bangor Raceway manager Fred Nichols] down to ask if I would be willing to do it before each race for the time that we were here.”

Sundays at Bangor Raceway tend to be a little more festive than the rest of the week with more parents bringing young children, and dogs, out to the track. The Sunday before Bangor closed, kids peered through the white fence around the outfield of the track to watch a Shrine Parade with the clowns and mini trucks, bikes and cars. Children often listen and sway to Wheeler’s Dixieland music.

Ann Turmel of Hermon made it a point to come to the final weekend of racing. She made it on the final day of summer racing, and stood near the rail with her daughters Nicole, 7, and Erica, 3. The girls wore matching orange tank tops, white shorts, and purple sandals. They wanted to be twins, Turmel said, but she dresses the girls that way so she can keep track of them.

Nicole and Erica sat in their own white plastic chairs, kid-sized replicas of the adult chairs. Ann Turmel placed a canvas bag in between them with coloring books, hats for the sun, and snacks. The girls chattered, played, fussed a little while Ann scanned her program, but Nicole and Erica always looked up when the horses go by. Nicole shook her head to the rhythm of the Hal Wheeler’s band behind her.

When Ann was ready to place a bet, the whole production packed up and moved inside. Then she returned to almost the same spot.

“The kids love the horses and the music. My son wanted to come, too, but they went to hockey today. He wanted to come here, too,” Ann Turmel said, scanning the crowd. “He was begging his dad to come here afterwards. I keep looking for them, but I don’t see them.”

Not everyone likes the children and dogs. JoAnn York cringes to see young children running around, partly because Mike York is on crutches and she worries a child will get in his way. She also worries that the dogs could bark at an inopportune moment.

“The track is an adult’s place, not a child’s place,” she said. “And did you see the dogs here? A dog could bark and upset the horses. If they charged [admission] to get in, you’d see a big change. People would leave their kids home. I was young, I had kids. I didn’t do it. I got a babysitter.”

Back to the track

The Bangor meet ended July 22, which will send the regulars off to the fair circuit or to Miller’s Restaurant in Bangor for its off-track betting. Many go grudgingly to Miller’s – nothing against the Main Street establishment, but live racing is the real thrill.

“I do occasionally [go to the OTB], but I find it less exciting,” Roy Willey said. “It’s more enjoyable, you have the atmosphere here. I know lots of people who have been coming here for years.”

Fred Vardamis will probably head to some of the fairs to watch the racing later this summer.

He’ll also continue his morning walks to Bangor Raceway. There’s no racing, but horses are stabled there through the fall. He’s been visiting a horse that was injured in an accident in Carmel last month. The horse was stitched up at the Bangor Raceway stables. He feels for the horse, almost as if it’s a human patient, he said with a chuckle.

His morning walks keep him connected to the horses and the track. And he can’t give up his ritual.

“I kind of miss [the racing],” Vardamis said. “It takes away a little bit of the incentive when I go for my walk. But there are horses down there until October, so I’m gonna be down there.”

Talk the talk

Win

You collect win money if you

correctly bet the horse that

finishes first.

Place

You collect place money if you bet the horse that finishes first or second.

Show

You collect show money if you bet the horse that finishes first, second or third.

Daily Double

You must combine the winner of the first designated race and the winner of the second designated race

Quinela

You must select the horses that finish first and second in the race, in any order, on a single ticket.

Exacta

You select the horses that finish first and second in a race in exact order.

Trifecta

You must pick the first three

horses to cross the finish line in their exact order of finish.

Pick Five

You must select the horses that

finish first in the designated five races. If no one correctly selects the five winners, the betting pool carries over to the next racing date.