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Award-winning columnist Tom Archdeacon — an old-school storyteller in a brand-new venue — writes about sports, the city, southwest Ohio and anything else that catches his fancy… or yours.Home > Blogs > Through the Arch > Archives > 2009 > July > 19
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Horsemen say slots will save Ohio’s racing
Paul Ciambro remembers his trip several years ago from Toledo to the Montgomery County Fairgrounds. with two race horses in tow:
“I needed two stalls and couldn’t find any. More than 200 stalls here and they all were full.”
The 66-year-old Ciambro was sitting along the mostly deserted shedrow on the backside of the fairgrounds the other day, his three standardbreds stabled behind him.
There’s no problem finding a stall now. Just a handful of small time horseman keep just over two dozen horses there.
The place serves as a microcosm of Ohio harness racing: Tracks are in financial trouble, racing dates have been reduced, purses are small and many of the best owners. trainers, drivers and horses have moved to states were the racing is more lucrative.
“We’ve got about five top drivers who started their careers at Lebanon now racing in Pennsylvania,” said Tom Gray, another horseman. “Over in Indiana they’re racing for more than twice the money we are….It’s because they’re all racinos.”
Those are race tracks with casinos which funnel back a percentage of their take into the sport.
Just recently the Ohio legislature approved a budget that allows video lottery terminals at Ohio’s seven race tracks.
While it’s a polarizing issue — Warren County officials won’t allow slot machines at Lebanon Raceway, prompting the owners of the cash-strapped track to look at building a new track possibly in Montgomery County — the fairgrounds horseman have some definite ideas.
They shared them — along with a symbolic story of a hypnotized pig — the other day and that’s the subject of my column in today’s newspaper, a story that’s also found on this sports web page.
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COLUMN: Dayton’s Olympic Family
Over the past two months, Maurice Wignall has competed in the Netherlands, Qatar, Brazil, Spain, Poland, Germany and Jamaica.
Next week, the two-time Olympic hurdler, will leave for meets in Monaco, then Sweden and finally end up in Germany, where he’ll train for a week in Nuremberg with his Jamaican teammates, and then head to Berlin for the world track and field championships.
His wife, Janelle, herself a well-travelled, two-time Olympic swimmer and now an assistant swim coach at Wright State, leaves next week for Rome, where she will coach the Jamaican swimmers at the world championships.
So with their passports covered with more ink than a tattooed biker gang, where’s their favorite stop?
“Right here,” Maurice said as he and Janelle sat on their patio by the backyard swimming pool at their Washington Township home.
“When I’m travelling my sleep cycle gets all messed up,” Maurice said. “I bet I didn’t have one good night’s sleep from May until early this month….when I got back home.”
The Wignalls grew up in Kingston, Jamaica. Both were All Americans — Janelle at the University of Florida, Maurice at George Mason. Before moving here in 2007, they lived in Washington D.C.
“We’re more comfortable here than any of the other places we’ve been,” said Maurice.
Janelle nodded: “People here have been like a breath of fresh air.”
Maurice laughed: “One strange thing. We apparently speak with an accent. I say…apparently. But it’s not that difficult for Ohioans to understand us. Whereas in Florida or New York, we have to repeat ourselves…Maybe it’s the people here take time to listen.”
The best thing about being here, he said, is being with their two-year-son Max, who was out there in the backyard the other day, wearing swimming trunks and inflatable floaties around his arms, while practicing his dad’s burst from the starting blocks.
“He likes to pretend to be his dad,” Janelle smiled. “He’ll get down in a little squat and wait to hear ‘on your mark, ready, set, go.’ Then he’ll just run and run.”
Maurice is doing the same and, this year he’s doing it better than than last season when he made it to the finals of the 110 meter hurdles at the Beijing Olympics. He recently won the hurdles event at the Jamaica trials and he just had two strong meets in Spain.
“I never thought this long into the game — at age 33 — I’d still be a contender, but I am,” he said. “I really feel good about this year.”
Yet whenever he can, he slips home from the international circuit. And so one Sunday in May, he landed at Dayton’s airport two hours before his son’s backyard birthday party.
After Beijing — even though he’d turn right around for a meet in Shanghai — he came back to Dayton. That also meant skipping a week-long party back in Jamaica as the nation honored its Olympians.
“Here, there wasn’t a lot of fuss,” he smiled. “About the only mention was one day when I was out mowing our lawn. One of the neighbors stopped and said, ‘I watched you on TV. You did well.” And I said ‘thank you.’”
And that was good enough.
He was home.
