Saltwater in the Bluegrass by Cliff Kice

Author:Cliff Kice [Kice, Cliff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780982813409
Publisher: The Adventures of J.C. Stringer
Published: 2008-10-15T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

During the second summer after the I & L inception, on the second Saturday in July, associates of the Racing Syndicate began having their annual Pig Roast Barbeque. Lamar and Milford were the annual hosts, having the entire shindig catered and inviting bluegrass bands from as far as Nashville to come and perform.

The local sense was, if bluegrass music is playing and your feet are not moving, then, well, there is something wrong with you. If that is the case, you are obviously in the wrong part of the country. Within a few years, the party had grown to around five hundred people. Besides the members of the Syndicate, the party was opened up to all the people who worked on the backside of the track, the owners, the jockeys, the trainers, and the stable hands, along with their immediate families.

It had become a traditional calendar marker. It was an event that people loved and started looking forward to all the way through the winter.

The Syndicate was featured in The Kentucky Horseman magazine and The National Publication of Racetrack Today. More attention was being placed on the future of today’s horse racing and the business side of the sport. People were sitting up and taking notice of the group and basing their own organizations after several basic principles the I & L was using to be successful. It was turning into a venture that was in the forefront of every major racing group in the country.

In the summer of that same year, Milford Langston was named Owner of the Year and was awarded the Willy Shoe trophy for putting seven horses in the winner’s circle in seven consecutive races. People connected with the Syndicate were riding on a complete case of ownership high.

In November, during the fall meet, Milford and his group won both the Kroger’s Stake and the Kentucky Colonial. On Thanksgiving Day, the I & L won the fifth race of the day, the prestigious Jockey’s Cup. Success, excitement, and jubilation for Milford and the Syndicate was short lived when tragedy struck home just after New Year’s. On January the 16th, eighteen thoroughbreds were lost during the night when two stables on the Simpsonville Farm caught fire due to an electrical short circuit. Three stake champions died along with eleven other mares and four fillies. All eighteen horses were buried on the large knoll west of the eight-hundred-acre farm.

By spring Milford was rebuilding.

As summer concluded, the heat that had once been rising from the dry dirt and sand track was now becoming softer and cooler with the turning of the leaves. Inevitable signs of cooler weather once again began to show. Colder, wetter weather was moving in from the northeast.

The fall meet was now in full swing.

Lamar was back in the middle of the racing operation and was happier than he had been in years. He was the first person into the barns and stables most mornings, helping Jim, his trainer, and Jim’s people.

He was truly once again becoming a full-fledged member of the

“Dawn Patrol.

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