Rosecroft Raceway is ready to return from summer vacation tonight and kick off the fall meeting, with one of its biggest supporters and most loyal patrons in attendance.
Henry Sacks, an 88-year-old native of Washington, D.C., has been going to Rosecroft – nicknamed the ‘Raceway by the Beltway’ – since the track first opened 67 years ago.
Sacks was among the reported crowd of 12,000 that showed up on May 26, 1949 to see the new facility, built for $800,000 on 120 acres owned by late Harness Hall of Fame Immortal William E. Miller. After inclement weather postponed the card, an estimated 6,000 turned out the next day for the first racing program.
“My father took me and a couple of my buddies there. The line was so long to get in,” Sacks recalled. “It was raining pretty hard that night, and we had to turn around and go home because they cancelled the races.”
Rosecroft was described by the Washington Post as the social and political centre of Prince George’s County for a quarter-century, from its opening to the early 1970s, hosting such dignitaries as President Lyndon Johnson, entertainers Elizabeth Taylor and Zsa Zsa Gabor, Hall of Fame boxer George Foreman, former Maryland Gov. Parris Glendening and politician Nancy Pelosi.
“It used to be packed every night. They got that big parking lot there and every spot was full,” Sacks said. “It’s a fun place to be. You meet a good bunch of people. It’s a fun place.”
Sacks got his introduction to racing through his father. They went to see the Thoroughbreds run at Timonium during the Maryland State Fair. Once hooked, it wasn’t long before Sacks found ways to get to the races himself.
“I was born and lived in DC. It was the greatest city in the world to grow up in when I was young,” he said. “My father took me to the track for the first time when I was 11 years old. We went to Timonium, and I’ll never forget it. He was a nickel a chance trying to win a little table radio, they were clumsy then with the tubes and everything. He spent a dollar trying to win that thing which for him was a lot of money.
“When I was young all the young guys went to the track. I remember we used to skip school to go to Laurel and Bowie,” he added. “You look around now and there’s not a young person at the track. They’re home playing with their computers and all that. We’ve got to get the young people involved.”
A father of three, Sacks brought his children to Rosecroft over the years. One particular trip is still fresh in his memory.
“I started taking my kids when they were little. One day I took my youngest one, just her and me. She was maybe six or seven years old. I already had in my mind who I was going to bet, and she kept pulling on my pants leg, ‘Daddy, daddy, bet number eight.’ I said, ‘All right, now let me alone.’ I bet the horse I was going to bet and I put $2 to win on the eight horse and that was the end of it for me,” Sacks said.
“When they were running around the track I forgot all about her bet and I was just watching my horse. All of a sudden I heard her scream, ‘Daddy, he won, he won, he won!’ I looked at the board and the horse was 99-1. You don’t see many trotters like that. That horse paid $208 for $2,” he added. “I said to my daughter, ‘Promise me when we get home you won’t mention this to your mother,’ and I slipped her a few dollars. We got home, her mother was sleeping. She ran up the stairs and said, ‘Mommy, we hit for a horse and it paid $208!’ It’s funny now, but it wasn’t funny at the time.”
Sacks has seen such champions as Forrest Skipper, Mack Lobell, Camtastic and Cams Card Shark race at Rosecroft, but it’s a popular local favourite that comes to mind first when recalling the horses he’s enjoyed watching.
“The most famous horse there, he wasn’t that good but he was very popular, he was named Come On Fred When he’d run the announcer used to have fun and say, ‘Here comes Come Oooooooon Fred!’ He became a legend at that track,” Sacks said. “I’ve seen a lot of drivers go from there to become world famous. It’s just a fun track.”
These days Sacks lives in neighboring Camp Springs, a community about five miles east of Rosecroft. He counts his time at the track as among the most special in what he considers a most special life.
“I go over every day and sit with the same bunch. There’s a bunch of guys from Korea that come over and we have a good time. We’re good friends. We’ve been around so long we all know each other. It’s fun. I love it. I’d be lost without that track. If they shut that down, I’d be sick,” he said.
“I have had a life that no one could imagine. I was roasted in 1990 in D.C. and they had to turn people away at the door. I’ve been written up in four magazines. I have been so unbelievably lucky.”
Rosecroft’s 27-day fall meet runs Tuesdays and Thursdays through December 15. First-race post time is 6:40 p.m.
(Rosecroft Raceway)