Go ahead, try to put Dana Parham in a box. There’s a good chance the lid will end up slamming on your fingers.
His favourite racetrack? It’s Hialeah, the palatial oval where the flamingoes once flew in formation and the ornate fountains spilled with water dyed pink. So what if the Miami track is long gone? So what if Parham has never owned and raced a Thoroughbred?
He has more than compensated by working the other side of the pari-mutuel street. He owns a slew of trotters and pacers both on the track and in the breeding shed, more than 200 of them. They have helped him earn a spot among the Top 10 owners in North America this year with earnings of $4.6 million USD.
Parham, 74, even purchased an auction house last year (Midwest Standardbred Horse Sale) and started a stallion management company with Dr. Bridgette Jablonsky, called Dr. J.
Not bad for a guy who grew up in the Columbus, Ohio area, graduated from Olentangy High in 1969, and credits old Beulah Park and Scioto Downs for an important part of his education.
“Started going to Beulah with my mother,” said Parham. “I’d pick her up from work and we’d catch the last couple of races. And Olentangy is only about seven miles from the fairgrounds, both being in Delaware County, so that will tell you where I was during Little Brown Jug week.”
Trips to California where his grandfather would take him to Hollywood Park got him further hooked on horse racing.
“I was eight or nine and was amazed by the tote board, all the numbers and things flashing,” he said. “I’ve loved numbers my whole life. They fascinate me. I put it all together in my head, and it was something special. There was something else, too — I’ve always loved risk, and racing is risk.”
Risk and numbers provided Parham with the capital to bankroll his large harness holdings. He started in Las Vegas nearly 50 years ago playing table games and betting sports but eventually hit it big when he became one of North America’s computer-assisted wagering (CAW) giants.
The pairing of heady algorithms and high-speed computers had Parham and his staff wagering hundreds of millions of dollars annually on anything and almost everything that ran around a track. The advent of rebates, where big bettors collected rebates of 10 to 15 per cent on their total wagers, provided the opportunity to collect pots of gold at every finish line from coast to coast.
Today, Parham says he rarely bets a dime. He’s passionate about racing, especially in Ohio where his stable is in the hands of U.S. Hall of Fame trainer Virgil Morgan Jr., but he’s not in love with how the game is taking a back seat to other forms of gambling.
“As for the future, if we continue to follow the direction that betting is going, we’ll be Sears, Roebuck and Company and Penn Central Railroad. We’re going to go to zero. Kind of like shopping malls, which have been getting destroyed,” he said. “Maybe we’ll end up with super tracks with hotels where people can shop and eat and ski. It’s the small tracks that are a concern, the ones sponsored by casinos. I’m not sure they want us. We’ve lost Pompano and we’ve lost Cal Expo.”
The silver lining is that Parham is bullish on Ohio.
“I love Ohio racing,” he said. “Ohio is strong, and the county fair network has a lot to do with that. A day racing at the fairs is great. I spent my last two summers at Scioto Downs running my stable. Management even gave me an office to work out of.”
It was the computer betting that provided Parham with the funds to pursue racing in a big way. He waited until he was flush with cash before purchasing his first horse in 2000. It was a $15,000 claimer named Staying Away that raced at Chicagoland tracks and won 12 times. Parham said “he paid his way.”
And, thus, Odds On Racing, Parham’s stable name, was born.
“It’s a racing term, meaning overwhelming favourite. I love it,” he said.
Parham points to Odds On Equuleus as his best horse. The son of Art Major won 20 of 93 starts and $935,816 USD. Those totals could have been much higher except for one thing – Odds On Equuleus was foaled in 2010, the wrong year.
“He had to chase Captaintreacherous,” said Parham. “We finished second to him in the Metro [at two, by a neck] and in the Meadowlands Pace the next year.”
Captaintreacherous won 23 of 33 starts and $3.1 million USD and is in the U.S. Harness Hall of Fame.
Parham’s top performers of late are the Buckeye-bred sophomore fillies Odds On Chesapeake and Odds on Hialeah, both stakes stars developed by Morgan Jr. Odds on Chesapeake has won 13 of 28 starts and finished second in this year’s Jugette. Odds On Hialeah, a winner of 11 of 19 and $556,056 USD, was an Ohio Sires Stakes champion last year, defeating Odds On Chesapeake.
It was a certain horseman at Scioto Downs that inspired Parham to dream of making it big in the harness game – U.S. Hall of Fame trainer/driver Gene Riegle, the pride of Greenville, Ohio.
“I told myself if I ever had money, I’d have a stable like him. In a way, he’s the one who got me in the business even though we never met,” said Parham. “Actually, we did meet briefly at a sale in Kentucky [in 2001]. I bid and got a filly [for $50,000 USD], and Riegle was sitting in front of me. He turned and said, ‘You got a helluva filly there, and I ought to know because I trained the whole family.’ I thanked him, and those were the only words we ever exchanged.”
Riegle was right. Parham’s money was well spent. That filly turned out to be Odds On Charmaine. She won 18 races and $341,245 USD.
Parham said these days, his head is in the breeding end of the game.
“I have 84 broodmares, most of them in Kentucky at two farms around Lexington. It’s a big spaghetti, moving them around from state to state depending on where the sire stakes eligibility is best. I have four main trainers [down from more than a dozen]. Virgil has more of my horses than any other trainer. The others are Scott DiDomenico, Peter Wrenn and Travis Alexander.”
Parham is a realist, who has repeatedly lived the ups and downs of racing.
“I say that every horse will break your heart at some point,” he said. “There are just things about the sport that happen. I admire Ron Burke; I have all the respect in the world for what he’s been able to put together [as North America’s runaway champion trainer]. I can’t beat him. He is playing chess and all the other trainers, those with pacers, are playing checkers.”
At least Parham and Morgan earned a draw with Burke at Scioto Downs this past season. Morgan’s run of 30 consecutive years as the Columbus oval’s top trainer was in jeopardy until closing night. He trailed Burke by a single winner but won a race while Burke was blanked. They each sent out 107 winners.
Parham is bullish on racing, yet Father Time has somewhat lowered the temperature of his ambition.
“One of racing’s problems is that there is no good way to funnel ideas. Who do you funnel them to? They say the powers to be, but we have no powers to be,” he said. “So, if I have the greatest idea, who do I give it to to get it implemented? Who implements ideas for harness racing?”
But if given the opportunity to become harness racing’s czar, Parham has a quick answer.
“The first thing I would do is find somebody 40 years younger to be the real czar.”
Older and wiser is the man who knows the odds.