More than most things, the races in Ferndale mark a time of year, and that time has come.
In Humboldt County, we have a special breed of horse racing that brands the area as a true, rural agricultural community. That is, we may not have the glitz of Belmont or Churchill Downs, but we have the spirit.
There are lots of tracks with better facilities, lots of tracks with better horses, lots of tracks where much more money is made and lost. Most of them are exciting, but there is usually something much too professional about them. They have a standardized feel; I've been to tracks where entire fields of horses would be indistinguishable from each other if it weren't for their jockeys' colors and numbers.
The Ferndale Fairgrounds track is a tight track with tough corners, making it somewhat unique. It's a track where the jockey's familiarity with the track is perhaps more important than the quality and record of the horse.
The stadium is old and worn, but beautifully so, and it's generally easy to find a seat with an unobstructed view, or a place along the rail where you can taste dirt as the lead horse passes. It's a place that still has the old trench urinals in the men's bathroom. It's a place where the betting booth attendants will help you out if you don't know what you're doing -- try asking for advice at Saratoga Springs.
The races would be fun regardless of your betting habits. But with a racing form and 20 bucks, you can pump adrenaline into your veins and be none the worse -- or the better -- at the end of the day. Somehow, betting even $1 on a race fires a fervor for your chosen horse. You might also choose your horse based on its appearance, its high-stepping gait on the warm-up, on its jockey or on a whim and have no more chance to win or lose than those with their nose in the statistics, you know, the ones chewing cigars and sporting appropriate caps.
Perhaps best of all, you see people you know, people you haven't seen in a long time, gathered at the fairgrounds in the middle of the agricultural oasis of the Ferndale Bottoms, like pilgrims to Jerusalem.
I know I look forward to the races every year, to share in the tradition that has the sheen of years polished into it with the yearly application of horse sweat, beer, money, and people in the anxious grip of chance.
Reprinted by Permission © 2009
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