Essay - Harvey Zipkin: PROPOSAL FOR PHOTO BOOK ON THOROUGHBRED RACING

June 7, 1997, Belmont Park… hundreds of cameras focus on a few square yards of real estate near the finish line… motor-drives fire off hundreds of frames, documenting the final few seconds of the running of the Belmont Stakes.

But the finish line is just a shard of Belmont Park's 430 acres; the Belmont Stakes one of ten races of one of five racing days that week; the week, one of 52 racing weeks in New York that year; the track, one of nearly 100 in operation across the country; the winning horse one of 2,200 stabled at the track, one of 70,000 in training nationwide.

Harvey Zipkin's photographs and my words will explore those other horses, other days and other places at the races--back at the barns, in the shadows, down by the rail, at the betting window, in the box seats. We'll reveal the hidden rhythms, contradictions, crazy hope, daily grind, on told stories and oft-told tales that push the pulse of the racetrack.

One image might suggest an exploration of the pre-race anxieties of a trainer, jockey or owner before a race; another might spur taxonomy of the racetrack habitué. Other images, other observations. The sleek runner having his thin ankles hosed down by a portly groom…one of them the product of centuries of selective breeding. The tote board with TV monitors, conveying the most important information for it's viewers, at least until the race has been run. Old folks watching an old sport, where the contestants start competing at age two, and many are retired at age three. A jockey on horseback reflected on the mirrored scale…for the jockey the horse means powerful, exhilarating, dangerous freedom, while the scale---dreary, persistent, also dangerous tyranny. So you own a horse? Did you come up with one like John Henry, that once changed hands for $1100 and went on to earn over $6.5 million, and retire in 1984 as the richest thoroughbred to date…or did you bid $10.1 million for a yearling such as Snaafi Dancer, that not only never won a race, but when retired was found to be sterile…no you're somewhere in-between, losing some money and having the time of your life. As I would weave my words around Harvey Zipkin's photographs, I'd pull the telling details that experience has shown me pulls people into the racing story (that all thoroughbreds can trace their lineage back through the centuries to at least one of three founding stallions, the origin and meaning of the silks, that in 75 percent of all races the horses are up for sale, what weight means at the racetrack, what it takes to win at the races, the greater fool theory and its application to the thoroughbred market). Our words and pictures, working separately, working together, will combine to open windows onto the separate reality of the oval-shaped principalities across the country, where thoroughbreds are raced and dreams are chased.

John Lee