A day at the Horse Races - Hialeah Race track home movie 1992

My nephew has a job involved with renovating the old Hialeah racetrack. There haven't been any horse races at the track in years. The building piqued his interest as it is pretty unusual and was built way back in 1920s. I told him I had a homemade video from about 25 years ago that I took at the racetrack one day. I used an old hand held 8mm video camera so the video doesn't look that good compared to today's video and I haven't taken the time to do much editing of this video, but I thought I would post it so he and others could see how the Hialeah racetrack used to look years ago.

I always enjoyed going to Hialeah racetrack. I enjoyed the horse races, but the old building and the surrounding park like atmosphere and landscaping made it an enjoyable destination.

On a fall or winter's day you could place your bets and sit up in the stands and look out over the track that was surrounded by a giant curtain of Australian pines that blocked out the surrounding town and city so you felt like you were in someplace totally different than South Florida. I'm not trying to get all fancy here, but in some kind of way you did feel like you were back in time, just a little bit. It was a great escape.

Watching the bettors who patronized the racetrack was almost as fun as watching the horses. I enjoyed listening to the people who had different betting methods explain how they were going to win such and such a race and their behavior was always entertaining no matter whether they won or lost.

I still remember one better getting angry with himself for using his betting system which somehow depended upon the amount of money he spent during the day to arrive at his mystical magical numbers. Upon losing he berated himself for having forgotten to add the taxes to his figures. My most favorite bettor of all was watching a person who had a losing ticket on a horse who had come in close to last yet he still went to the replay television and watched the race over as it was replayed and was getting excited again watching his horse thinking that this time the result was going to be different because it was on TV.

I wasn't much of a better bettor than anyone else. I humbly remember betting on one horse and as it disappeared behind the tally board in the middle of the track, it never reappeared. At least not running, as minutes later the Jockey was to be seen leading my horse around the track walking it back in.

Over time I developed a betting system that was foolproof and would guarantee that I would always leave the racetrack with money. My system was simple. I can recommend it highly. When I arrived to the racetrack I would rent a pair of binoculars for $2 and leave the $10 deposit. I would bet as many races as I wanted to. My system depended upon returning the binoculars for my deposit after all the races had been ran and receiving my deposit back, thereby guaranteeing that I would always have eight dollars on leaving Hialeah racetrack. I am not aware of any other horse racing betting system that can make a similar guarantee.

My mom and stepfather never went anywhere, but through my encouragement and stories of how enjoyable the racetrack was I was able to get them to come to the racetrack on a workday when there weren't too many people there.

We went up into the stands to watch the horses and sat down in some empty seats that were surrounded by hundreds if not thousands of other empty seats. I did not realize that someone had been sitting there and left their programs on the seats. We just happened to take their seats after they had left.

When the people came back they very loud and angry at us for having sat in their seats where they had left their program. I have not seen many people more angry than they were. You would have thought we had ran over one of their more favorite children with our car. And backed up.

Of course, we were ignorant of the practice of saving unreserved seats with a program in a near empty racetrack. My stepfather, who majored in bar fighting and weekend beer binges in his youth and had the nose,scars and bumps on his head to prove it, but was fortunately a senior citizen by that time, came very close to making the horse racing event into a boxing match.

I hope when they finish renovating the racetrack they continue to have races there. Watching the horse races on a lazy afternoon amongst the crowd of hopeful and happy fools is not a bad way to spend the day.