BANGOR – It’s minutes before the start of the first race on the 120th opening night of harness racing at Bangor Raceway Friday and Joey Corrow is in a bit of a dilemma. He has a horse in mind, has circled its number on his program but there’s a lingering feeling that he’s making the wrong choice.

“I always go with my first choice,” Corrow said.

Everyone who places money on horse races has their own system. In many cases the system was handed down to them.

Corrow, who has lived in Bangor for the last three years but hails from Caribou, got his start when he was young. He learned from his grandmother who took him to races in Presque Isle.

His grandmother, Marian Davenport, bought a new Cadillac every two years with her winnings, Corrow said.

“I never miss a night. Since I moved here I maybe missed two nights in three years,” Corrow said.

Friday night though there was a mystery element in the mix. Longtime driver Greg Bowden had returned home.

Bowden, a 1980 graduate of Bangor High School, grew up in the Bangor Raceway barns. He has returned home after years of racing around the country to work in the family business and to race at Bass Park.

“I lived five blocks from here on North Street,” Bowden said. “I started hanging around the barns when I was about 9 years old and have been hooked ever since. It’s been quite a ride.”

As a Dixieland band plays “When the Saints Go Marching In,” Corrow said he doesn’t know Bowden, who once had seven wins on a single race card at Plainridge, Mass.

And he goes against his own personal philosophy to change his pick. It doesn’t work.

Bowden drives SS Secret Lover across the line first and Corrow shakes his head. His horse finishes dead last.

A little later as a mist falls on this cool night, Bowden would place first in the second race, driving Jimmy Bois Joly. He would follow that with wins in the fifth race and second-place finishes in the third, fourth and eighth races.

“I usually go with drivers,” Corrow said. “That was quite a return home for him.”

Bowden is happy to be home. He also would like to see the proposed Racino put in place that is being bandied about for Bass Park.

“Obviously I support it. I think that it would be a boon. Not just for the harness horsemen but this area is starving, starving for business or commerce of any kind,” Bowden said.

The natural assumption would be that it would be difficult to find anyone opposed to the Racino at Bangor Raceway but Corrow doesn’t care for the idea. Not that he’s opposed to gambling. He makes steady trips to the ticket window just before the start of each race.

“I want people to come here and just enjoy the horse racing and not be distracted by the slots. I come here because of the environment of horse racing. I like to be here on the rail, right in front of the board and in front of the band, the smell of the horse manure,” he laughed.

Reginald Duguay is a horse owner from Winslow. His horse, Open Advantage, wins the third race and another, Jates Solare E, is third in the fourth.

He said his father taught him how to read a racing program when he was 6 and he has been hooked every since. Duguay looks forward each year to opening night at Bangor Raceway. He hopes one day to come to Bangor and find a Racino here. He sees it as a way to save harness racing.

“But I think [horse racing] could be in bad shape if they had gambling at regular casinos. There’s only so much money around and the pie can only be cut so much,” Duguay said.

Racino or no Racino, slots or no, Friday night was a night for racing at Bangor Raceway. A night of homecoming for Greg Bowden.

Ticket stubs littered the wet grounds. the smell of french fries floated through the air. Kids stood at the open paddock area as drivers climbed aboard and chatted with them.

And fathers, mothers, grandmothers and grandfathers, like Corrow’s and Duguay’s before them, explained the racing program to kids who seemed more interested in the french fries until the horses came flying by.