General Category > Nostalgia

Tropical Park Harness Meet

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Meadow Ford:
I say Harness Meet because I think they only raced one short meet.
1968 maybe 69
Miami, FL.
We raced on a synthetic Tartan track like the one first installed at The Meadows. The track was build on the inside of the dirt mile track.
We shared the barn area with the tbreds. They had use of the track till 10:00AM, and we had it from 10:15 to 1:00.
It was not a happy marriage!
The manure pits were right next to the race track. If you were carrying your manure basket out to empty, a exercise rider might call out some obscenities toward you. All you had to do was make a fast movement with the manure basket, the tbred would sudden stop, and the exercise rider would go flying over the horses head. Fun Fun Fun at the old racetrack.
The tartan track was something like 9/10 of a mile.
No electronic timer.
Anyone care to guess what the signal was to start the hand held stop watches?

Meadow Ford:
The track was short so the start of a mile race was a few hundred feet up the stretch. Hard to judge were to start the watches from the judges stand. They had a man with a flag at the starting pole.
When the first horse would past the start pole he would drop the flag, and the judges in the booth would start their stop watches.

Mailbox Money:
That sounds like a Boujie ass place! I wish I could have gone there!

Meadow Ford:

--- Quote from: Mailbox Money on September 25, 2023, 12:13:01 PM ---That sounds like a Boujie ass place! I wish I could have gone there!

--- End quote ---
Now I got to go to google to look up Boujie.

kooter for hipin:


My parents were in the breeding end as I was strictly a Claiming guy.  My parents were quite friendly with Doctor Gault from Ohio who was very active in Harness Racing. To that end, amongst others, he owned the fastest trotting bred pacer at TropicaL Park. The horse was retired to stud at my parents Horse Farm as a favor.  His name was Duke's Son (1:58.2) by Duke of Lullwater. No big deal since Tropical Park, owned by the Van Lenneps, owners of Pompano Park closed after a very short period, closed due to lack of interest. No big deal, I just found nothing better to do late in the evening.

                                         Bon Soire

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