Horsemen Bid Farewell To Bowie

As trainer Linda Gaudet went about the business of taking down walls of photographs that tell the history of her life and that of her husband, Eddie, and their children at the Bowie Training Center, the emotions were bittersweet.

“We’re excited about the move,” said Gaudet, who has stabled horses at the center for nearly 43 years, with her husband there many years before that.  “But in a way, it is agonizing.  It’s been two weeks of not sleeping and I’m not sure the car won’t come here all on its own when I go to work [at Laurel Park].

“Both my kids were raised here.  They were home-schooled here.  We’ve been in this barn close to 30 years. It was new when we first moved in and it was a nice barn at that time. There are a lot of memories here. Lacey [her daughter who is also a trainer] said she was going to go to Wal-Mart and get a bunch of frames for all these pictures so we can put them up in our new place, but a lot of them will come home.”

Gaudet and all the other horsemen, some of whom have stabled their horses at the Bowie Training Center for up to half a century, have been slowly moving out of the 101-year-old facility during the last few months. The last horses shipped out Tuesday, April 28.

“I’ve been here a long time,” said Magill, 49. “Ten years; And I used to come here for the races with my dad when I was 9 or 10 years old.  There’s sadness to be going, but when you’re over there [at Laurel Park], it is exciting.  Bowie, well, it is time to go. It was getting a little run-down.”

The trainers at Bowie have known for several months the training center would close in April, once the first of two new barns was completed at Laurel Park. And there is stoicism about them, as they reflect on the state of horse racing and the reality present in the industry.

During the last several years Hollywood Park, Garden State and other racetracks have disappeared. It’s the state of the industry, as track owners consolidate, with the new ideal being two strong tracks are better than three and one better than two.

But that wasn’t always the case. And in Bowie’s heyday, people literally climbed over dead bodies to get the racetrack.

In those days, trains would stop at its doorstep to drop off thousands of race fans.  King Leatherbury, who earlier this month was elected to the Hall of Fame, has said on a number of occasions that when he was a student at the University of Maryland he would go to the track after his last class of the day; arriving in time to bet the last race.

He told Baltimore Sun reporter Mike Klingaman he remembers seeing people covered in blood standing in line to make their bets after being involved in a train crash that killed six in February 1961.
Gaudet remembers fans on another occasion during a snowstorm refusing to leave until they could get their tickets cashed.

Hall of Fame jockey Chris McCarron, who in 1974 got his start at Bowie, told the Baltimore Sun five years ago, the last time it was feared Bowie would be shut down, that while the track rates low in his estimation on being ‘picturesque’, he’d rate the course “one of the safest of all tracks for horses to run on – and I’ve ridden on about 70 tracks.”  

McCarron is just one of several Hall of Famers – Kent Desormeaux and Chris Antley, being two others – who got their start at the track that was among the most innovative in its heyday.  In 1927, Bowie was the first track in the country to install a public address system. In 1934, it was the first track in Maryland to require drug testing. In 1936, it was the first track in the state to feature the daily double.  And in 1957, it was the first track in the East to race in winter.

Even after the racetrack closed in the summer of 1985, it was still a “great training center” horsemen said.

“That track, the people who put it together . . . just did a wonderful job,” said Gaudet. “There hasn’t been much done to it since it was built. But in snow, rain, sleet, you could still train.  They’d just blow off the snow and it was ready to go. And it drained great.”

MJC is providing the moving vehicles to transport the horses and gear and it is also preparing the stalls in old and new barns with fresh bedding straw or chips, whichever is preferred by the individual trainers.

And Gaudet said the new barns are beautiful.

 “The horses will love it,” she said. “They are well constructed, open and airy.  The horses are across the hall from each other and can see each other.  And the stalls are big, lined with mats. The webbing and screens are already built in.  All we have to take are our horses and water buckets.”

The barns are unique to Maryland.  Gaudet and Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association President Tim Keefe took a trip to Gulfstream to see what the barns would be like before they were built here.

While Gulfstream is warm, and its barns and horses benefit from the openness in the summer heat, as Maryland and its horses will, Gaudet and trainer Tim Tullock don’t expect an issue with the cold.

Gaudet pointed out the barns have been used in Alaska and Denver without issue.  Tullock, who moved his horses from Laurel Park barn 21 to the new stables Monday, April 27, thereby becoming the first occupant expects the heat generated by 100-plus horses in the barn to be a natural heating system in winter. And, he added, “The walls that are there are solid and facing North, where the wind blows in. That should help.

“I’m very happy to be in there,” he said. “There is nothing claustrophobic about the barns. I’m sure there will be little issues to iron out, that’s just one of those deals. But it will iron out as we go.”

And Gaudet agreed.

“We walked through the new barns with [Stronach Group chief operating officer] Tim Ritvo [who with MJC general manager Sal Sinatra is overseeing the redevelopment of Maryland racing] and he was talking about the addition of a grazing area and walking ring,” Gaudet said. “He’s been a trainer. He knows what the horses and trainers need and he wants it to be beautiful.

“This is just the beginning. We’re all excited at what will come.”