How did we get hooked on this sport? We all have stories about how our love affair developed and blossomed. The TDN reached out to numerous notable people in the industry to get their stories to find out how they got hooked and stayed hooked on the sport.
Michael Dubb, owner
My introduction to racing really occurred as an accident as horses were not on my radar when I was a 16-year-old kid mowing lawns after school and on weekends. At one particular house where I cut the grass I went around to the kitchen door in the backyard to get paid my six dollars for mowing that lawn.
The year was 1973, I walked into the kitchen, and there was a man sitting at the table on the telephone telling people what horse to bet in different races at Belmont. These particular people had a son who was a few years older than me and when I saw him a few days later I asked him what was going on. He said his father worked with his uncle on handicapping horse racing.
I asked what that was about, and he explained to me that his uncle had worked for Grumman on the moon rover landing in 1969 as a statistics and probability expert, and that somebody had challenged him and said, “If you can talk with dead certainty about where the moon rover would land then you should be able to pick the winner of a horse race.”
Unbeknownst to me, they had invented a handicapping device called the Kelco Calculator. They had determined that the best way to identify potential winners was through trying to identify which horse in the race had the most class. They had a formula that involved putting information into a slide rule to determine the class of the race.
Michael Dubb at 18 | courtesy of Michael Dubb
The following summer (1974) their oldest son asked me if I would like to follow him in his Volkswagen van while I drove mine that I used for landscaping to Saratoga. I was 17 years old, and we parked and slept in a campsite and went to the track during the day.
I was completely mesmerized by the beauty of Saratoga and the mystique of the horses. I was hooked as a fan and found going to Belmont Park and Saratoga great mental therapy for clearing my mind of whatever stress I had.
Some 25 years later, I met Jerry Bailey through my wife and his wife who had been playing tennis together. We became social friends, and through that friendship, I learned of the situation regarding the lack of childcare on the backstretch.
At this point, my landscaping business had transitioned into a successful home-building business, and I mentioned to Jerry that I would be interested in helping create a daycare center on the backstretch for these children as a charitable endeavor.
I was introduced to NYTHA and together we worked with NYRA to create the Belmont childcare center. It wasn't until the daycare center was complete, and I started meeting trainers that I thought it would be fun to own a few racehorses and that is how I got started owning horses.
My overall comment about being a fan followed by being an owner is, if I never 'met' racing, I would have more money. But I would never have had the experiences, the friendship and the camaraderie. I wouldn't trade the money for that experience that racing has brought to my life.
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