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Ohio racetrack minister serves unusual flock

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By KEN GORDON, The Associated Press 1:41 PM Saturday, December 24, 2011

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Not 30 seconds into his workday at Beulah Park, the Rev. Vincent Harris spotted someone in need.

In the paddock of the Grove City racetrack, he walked to the pickup truck of horse owner Shelly Radosevich and leaned inside.

She spoke first.

"Thank you for being at the hospital with us," Radosevich told him.

"Thank God he was able to walk out of that hospital," Harris replied.

A few days earlier, she had endured a harrowing scare when her 18-year-old son, jockey Jacob Radosevich, fell off his thoroughbred as the horse went down during a race.

She had already lost a son to a terrifying accident: In 2005, 16-year-old Joshua Radosevich broke his neck in a fatal fall at Beulah.

Jacob suffered only a broken collarbone, but his mother remained seriously shaken — and Harris wanted to make sure she was all right.

"The spot where Jacob fell was the same spot on the track where Joshua fell," Radosevich noted.

Harris nodded in sympathy, ultimately ending the exchange on a reassuring note: "The good news is, he'll be able to ride again."

The conversation was the first of dozens that the ordained Baptist minister would have on that autumn day.

As the racetrack chaplain, Harris, 61, regularly tends to the physical, spiritual and emotional needs of the hundreds of people who work — and, in some cases, live — on the backside of Beulah Park.

Many "backsiders" — groomers, exercise riders, maintenance workers and others — scrape together a meager existence.

They lack health insurance or don't speak English. They need winter clothes or have no idea how to find child care.

They live in the shadows — far from the grandstands and betting windows.

"The general public sees horse racing from the consumer side, but it takes a lot of laborers to make racing happen," said Paul Ransdell, interim executive director of the Race Track Chaplaincy of America, a group that sanctions and helps coordinate the assignment of 61 chaplains working at 82 tracks nationwide.

"It's a tough and dangerous way of life, and chaplains are challenged by a broad cross section of human needs."

A resident of the Hilltop neighborhood on Columbus' West Side, Harris splits his time between Beulah (which races from October to April) and River Downs near Cincinnati (May to September).

He is paid as a "missionary" through the American Baptist Association, with the Ohio division of the National Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association contributing a small amount of his salary.

The job involves long, irregular hours.

"In no way is it a 9-to-5 job," said his wife of two years, Lois. "I'm amazed he's able to do all that he does. He tries to help everyone he can."

Since arriving at Beulah in 2008, Harris has served as something of a social worker, too.

In a small trailer next to the 48-foot trailer that serves as his office, he stores the donated food and clothes he receives from churches and food pantries.

Backsiders know they can tap him anytime for help.

He also encourages them to take advantage of the free medical care provided twice monthly by the Mount Carmel mobile medical bus.

"He's a great guy," jockey valet Ron Copeland said. "He's got a big heart.

"A lot of people here, they don't have a car or a home to go to. ... It's kind of a rough life — not too glamorous at times. So it's good to know you have someone who cares, and he does."

Harris, a native of New York who attended Roman Catholic schools, was in his 20s and headed for law school when his partying lifestyle devolved into drug abuse.

Hooked on heroin, he lived for 2 1/2 years on the streets of New York, alienating himself from his mother and three siblings.

"My girlfriend was stabbed to death over $30 worth of crack," he recalled. "I got stabbed in a crack house on 95th Street. I overdosed twice, and I had a heart attack."

A sympathetic social worker helped steer Harris into a rehabilitation center in 1984. In January, he will mark 28 years of sobriety.

After graduating from divinity school and briefly serving as assistant pastor of a New York church, he moved to Ohio in 1996 to become chaplain at the Thistledown track near Cleveland before moving to Columbus three years ago. (The future of Beulah Park has been up in the air since Penn National, the company building a casino on the West Side, bought the track last year.)

Harris doesn't shy from sharing his past with those he serves — a history that seems to bolster his credibility.

"He'll tell you he's had some problems in his life," said Jim Yaegel, a Cincinnati horse owner. "He's not one of those people coming in from somewhere and he didn't do it."

Upon arriving most mornings, Harris makes the rounds — greeting, hugging, backslapping, joking and talking his way through the 28 barns at Beulah Park.

Everyone knows "Rev" or "Chappy."

Jim McKinney, general manager of Beulah, affectionately calls Harris (who stands 6 feet 1 inch and weighs 250 pounds) "a large man and a large personality."

In checking on track workers, Harris performs reconnaissance of sorts.

In short order one day, Harris:

— heard that an elderly man named Kenny, who monitors the breath test used to gauge the alcohol level of jockeys before a race, had suffered a heart attack the previous night.

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