Railbirds Are All the Same, Even Long-Lost Russian Counts
The racetrack may be the most democratic ground in America, even if there are fewer of them now.
During the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Md., May 20, 2017. PHOTO: JONATHAN NEWTON/THE WASHINGTON POST VIA GETTY IMAGES
It was along the rail at Maryland’s Laurel Park that I first met Sergei Tolstoy, a great-grandson of the man who wrote “War and Peace.” A count, he had a distinguished—if thinning—bloodline. Silver-haired and spry, he was tiny. At least he appeared so next to a forbiddingly colossal sidekick he referred to only as “my driver.” Sergei’s companion might have been Samoan but didn’t say so. He didn’t say much of anything, while Sergei was always eager to tell you which horse would win the next race.
I wish I had spent more time with Sergei, his driver and the other characters around the paddock. Nowhere will you meet more companionable people than at a racetrack’s rail. These spaces might be the most democratic patches of ground left in America. Here class and status—not to mention race, gender or sexual preference—mean nothing. If you want the real diversity, come to a racetrack.
I got to know Sergei in the early 1980s, when there were still three thoroughbred racetracks in Maryland. (Laurel and Pimlico remain open, while Bowie stopped hosting races in 1985.) I would still go to the track if there were one in Virginia, where I now live. Virginia’s last track, Colonial Downs, closed in 2014, after only 17 years of operation. It is stupefying that there isn’t a track in my state, given the Old Dominion’s contributions to equine culture.
Tracks all over America have been struggling since the 1970s, and the country is worse for it. A 2011 McKinsey study for the Jockey Club found that racing has failed “to keep up with rising competition from other forms of gambling, sports, and entertainment.” Some tracks have responded to changing demographics by turning themselves into quasi-casinos with videogames. This was predictable: Kentucky’s Churchill Downs apparently gets only 25% of its profits from the four tracks it owns. Much more money comes from its five casinos. Online race-betting appeals to a segment of young males but is unlikely to make railbirds out of them.
I lose no sleep fretting about the owners of these tracks. They can take care of themselves. But I am concerned for what all this means for American society. The U.S. is a republic but also a democracy. The decline of the racetrack subculture—and its inherently democratic nature—does not portend well for a country shaken with social tensions.
Sociologist Kate Fox’s “The Racing Tribe: Portrait of a British Subculture” (1999) looks at one of the few places where good-natured conviviality and a genuine sense of community remain the rule and not the exception. That it’s England she writes about only underscores the point. Brits, after all, tend to be a stuffier people than Americans. If racetracks can make our cousins across the pond loosen up, it says a lot about their democratizing effect.
Along the rail, Ms. Fox found, “it is quite meaningless to classify members of the Racing Tribe according to their age, sex, occupation or other market research categories.” The groups in which racegoers can be subdivided “cut across all the usual demographic boundaries.” Racing enthusiasts don’t behave “like a normal crowd.” Rather, racegoers “seem happy to make eye contact with each other. And when obvious strangers made eye contact, they did not immediately glance away, in accordance with the normal laws of crowd behaviour. Instead, the standard response seems to be a smile.” The sociologist noted that goodwill consistently prevailed in railbirds’ chats.
“This is very un-British behaviour,” she observes. It is increasingly un-American behavior, too. The disappearance of places where this kind of mixing and mingling feels natural should trouble any civic-minded American. I am not suggesting the racing industry needs a bailout. Nor should tracks receive any special treatment from local governments. These kinds of initiatives are only misguided attempts at fixing the problem. But that doesn’t mean the problem isn’t worth recognizing.
I’ve lost contact with Sergei. Last I heard, he was entertaining guests at what the Washington Post in 2010 called a “low-income assisted living facility in Foggy Bottom.” He was 87 then, getting by on a $213 monthly Social Security check. “I’m living like a bohemian,” he told the Post. “I beg, borrow and steal.” If you know where he is, tell him to call me. I have good information on who will win the Smarty Jones Stakes at Oaklawn Park on Monday. We’ll make a fortune.
Mr. Crawford is author of “How Not to Get Rich: The Financial Misadventures of Mark Twain ” ( Houghton Mifflin Harcourt , 2017).
