by Caitlin St. Clair and Jack Leger

Editor’s Note:

“For months, we’ve heard from environmentalists, economists, and legal analysts. But what about fans of the sport itself? In this exclusive interview, lifelong racing enthusiast Jack Leger explains why Baystate’s proposal is a betrayal of everything horse racing is supposed to stand for.”

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In the fall of 2024, representatives from Baystate Racing LLC (including Richard Fields, the millionaire casino developer and former owner of Suffolk Downs) were holding meetings with Leominster city officials about a proposed gambling development they were calling “The Fairgrounds”. This development would consist of a 1-mile horse track and a “sports bar” with off track betting and mobile wagering à la DraftKings. At the same time, in one of life’s little ironies, there was a benzene exceedance detected in the groundwater near their proposed site: the closed Mechanic St Municipal Landfill. The Mechanic St municipal landfill comprises 30 acres and 2 million cubic yards of municipal, industrial, and chemical waste. It was assessed under the Superfund program and contains several known human carcinogens.

When Baystate presented The Fairgrounds to an incredulous public, the resistance was powerful, immediate, and diverse. They have faced opposition on almost every possible front and every possible subject: the environmental concerns, the socio-economic effects of gambling, the legal and financial liability of the City, the traffic, the deleterious effects to the neighborhood, and animal welfare issues. One voice that had been missing was that of an actual fan of horse racing; someone so familiar with the sport and the workings of a racetrack that their view could not be ignored.

Enter Jack Leger, a local fixture and self-described experienced fan of horse racing. After he reached out to me, I had the great pleasure of speaking with him at length. Extremely generous with his knowledge, Jack seemed to know absolutely everything there was to know about the industry. Friendly and intelligent, he laughed easily but always remained calm and focused on his message: that Baystate’s proposal was bad for horse racing. I present here our interviews, conducted over the course of several days and edited for length and clarity.

Caitlin: Do you consent to a recorded interview?

Jack: Yes I do.

Caitlin: Okay.

Jack: And I’m being recorded as an experienced… years of interest in racing and a fan. A fan of horse racing.

I think your perspective as a horse racing fan is really valuable and an important point of view to consider when talking about this project. Why did you decide to speak out?

In my eyes, Baystate is not doing a fair assessment of what horse racing really is. That’s the disappointing thing about what they’re trying to do. You’ve got to educate the public as to, you know, what a racetrack really consists of, and then they can decide what to do.

There are currently no Thoroughbred tracks in Massachusetts or the surrounding region. What did the industry used to be like?

There were two main tracks: Rockingham Park and Suffolk Downs. And in the summer and in the fall they would have what they would call The Fairs. Those really minor, a lot of the minor trainers would go down there with some older, tired horses. The fairs usually last for a week or two weeks, you know, people could bet on horses that were at the fair, whatever. But those were the two. That was the only gambling we had. There were no casinos, there were no card places, there were no slots. So really, if you wanted to gamble you either went to the dogs or the horse track.

What do you think about the attempt to reintroduce horse racing into Massachusetts?

Personally? If it was a professional track and I knew we were gonna’ get good horses and good trainers, I would love it.

What would a real, professional racetrack look like to you?

I would love to see another racetrack open, but in a spacious area, you know, not in a neighborhood. You’re not going to do it on 38 acres on a landfill. If you really want to have it professional, bring in the best trainers, bring in the best horses. Logistically speaking, you almost need a casino because you need good purses, you need high purses. You want a top-notch track, then it’s got to be a very professional, thought-out process. You have to understand exactly what you need.

Jack would mention “purses” several times in our conversations. A “purse” is, essentially, the total amount of prize money distributed to the owners of the horses that finish in the top positions of a race, with the largest share going to the winner. Chronically low purses ushered in the age of the casino, and Massachusetts has recently attempted to prop up the horse racing industry by creating the Race Horse Development Fund, a fund that proposes to supplement the purses of Thoroughbred winners in the state. The problem is, of course, that there isn’t any Thoroughbred racing in the state. There have been numerous attempts to build a “racino” (a racetrack with an attached casino) in Massachusetts since the closure of Suffolk Downs, attempts that only grow more urgent as the state government contemplates whether or not to extend funding for the industry they are propping up.

Tell me what you, as a fan, enjoy most about horse racing.

You’re trying to pick a winner. You know what I mean? It’s a challenge. Some people… they’ll just bet. They go in and bet what’s called the “chalk”, which is the favorite. I like to try to pick the winner, or someone that I think can beat the winner. That’s called “handicapping,” I don’t want to call it a science, but it is. I was a handicapper. That’s how you make more money. The odds are greater if you can beat the chalk. You don’t do it all the time, trust me. But if you know how to bet, and you know how to handicap, you can at least break even. And if you break even gambling, you’ve won. So, that’s the excitement I got out of it. It’s a sport for me. I had to use my brain.

What kind of information does a good handicapper look for? Can you share any betting secrets with me?

As the years go by, you pick up these little tricks and these little things. You know, you learn to watch the horses in the paddock and see if they’re working up a sweat or if they got wraps on the front legs. That’s not always a good sign. That means the tendons could be a little sore. There’s all kinds of things. One of the big plays was always if they rested a horse. Let’s say a horse ran six times in six months and then they rested him for a couple months, now he’s coming back. If he didn’t win the first time out, bet him the third time. A rested horse.

Jack warms to his subject when we talk about handicapping and the challenge of picking winners. It’s obvious that handicapping requires a sharp, focused mind to observe, collect, and integrate information in order to determine the most statistically likely outcome. An advanced computer simulation running in your own mind, and one that he is proud of. Despite his skills in this area, he still doesn’t tease me about using a calculator for basic math.

Where do you get all the data you use to try and pick a winner if you can’t see them in the paddock?

They’re actually published in their own paper, what they call a daily racing form. It lists all the horses, and it’ll list like seven, eight past races from the horse. There are statistics within those races that you can look at, see how the horse ran, and have what they call a bias figure. And they have whether it was a rainy track, whether it was a fast track, whether the horse raced on grass that day, you know, there’s all kinds of information. That’s why I enjoyed it so much, because there’s a ton of information that you have to put together in your brain to try to pick a winner. Like I said, it’s a challenge. You literally, if you are a good handicapper, you can pick a winner other than the chalk. I hit the Kentucky Derby once. That’s the one where they all wear their fancy hats and drink. [he laughs] I always saved up. I won over $1,000 on it and I only gambled like $50.

So you did a really good job.

[He laughs again, proud] I handicapped it.

Many horse racing opponents say the sport is inhumane. What is your response to that?

I know people don’t like it, and they think it’s cruel. I always looked at the good side of the sport. I didn’t wanna look at the bad side. I mean, everybody knew there was a bad side, but there’s a bad side in any sport. Look at football players now. They’re killing themselves at 40 years old.

As a fan of horse racing, that’s what those horses are bred for. Thoroughbreds are going to run anyway. If you ever see a Thoroughbred and watch them out in the pastures, they run. That’s what they do. It’s just the way it is, you know? It’s been that way forever. They still need to be treated with respect and love. Most of the people that own them love those horses. They’re beautiful animals, you know. And…they are expensive.

How expensive are we talking here?

Low end, as low as five grand. If you’ve got a good breeding, they’ll pay crazy for these horses. High end? Millions. Millions.

Who makes more money? A trainer, an owner, or a breeder?

You wanna know the truth? The rich. [he laughs] I mean, it’s not a money-making business. It’s one of the reasons that they closed it, you know? It’s really hard. And now, because of gambling and stuff, there’s so much power money in this. It’s not a poor man’s sport.

Speaking of power money, there is a pretty long-standing association between horse racing and organized crime. Does that still exist?

It’s not as rampant as it used to be. There’s too much money in it now. There’s too much money to be made legally, so they don’t have to. Years ago it was easier to throw a race… I’m going back into the 50s and early 60s now. A huge trainer in Massachusetts actually lost his training license and got fired for training any horses in the United States because he got caught fixing races. You don’t see that now. You might see more, like, angle plan, like every sport plays the angles. But some of these trainers try to use drugs to make the horses run faster, like steroid shots. There have been trainers that have been suspended for six months or a year for doping the horses. But that’s not really organized crime, that’s the trainer doing it. Now there’s too much money in it, they don’t need to fix it. But it was rampant.

How did you become so familiar with the race tracks and practices in the US?

Well, because OTB (off-track betting) has been around for so long. I was playing horses, it was a hobby of mine before OTB. So before, when you wanted to go to the races, you had to go to the track and all you got was the horses that ran at the track. Then OTB came in. Now they were starting to show televised races from all the other tracks that were running that day. It opened up a whole new huge market. Actually, that’s what killed Suffolk Downs and Rockingham.

How so?

Well, when you have the attention of all the people that are fans of horse racing and all they can bet on are those tracks, those tracks can stay afloat because they get a large entertainment crowd. Entertainment, gambling, whatever you want to call it. With OTB, casino operators saw this as a venue to open up there. It was another market for them to get into gambling.

How did that lead to the tracks closing?

Well, because of what happened in the 90s. Around the mid 90s, the tracks were really dying, and one of the reasons they were dying was because there weren’t enough people. People weren’t making enough money, the purses weren’t great, so developers started buying up the tracks and putting casinos at or near them. The casinos would help offset the purses, so they’d increase the purses. What that created was a situation where if you didn’t have a casino, you couldn’t compete. That was the problem with Suffolk Downs and Rockingham. They couldn’t raise their purses enough to compete with those tracks that had the casinos. The good horse trainers, the good horses were all going down to New York or Florida. They’re not gonna come to Leominster.

Who would come to Leominster?

You’re just gonna get fair horses. You’re just gonna get old, tired, worn out horses, and some trainers that don’t even give a shit about them. They’re making a sham out of what horse racing really is, and I don’t think they care.

I don’t think they care either.

It’s not gonna be good racing. It… it’s a joke. It really is a joke. I would never go. I would never bet there, I would never go watch it, because the horses are all old and lame, and it’s… it’s the worst kind of racing there is. It’s ridiculous. You’re not gonna get a reputable trainer or a reputable buyer to come here, bring their horses, and run them. There’s no good trainers coming to Massachusetts to race horses. From a business standpoint it is totally unrealistic. I mean, it makes no sense other than they’re just trying to get the OTB. Why else? You can bring in a building and have OTB. You can’t bring in grandstands and everything else for people to watch these races.

I think a portable grandstand was part of their proposal.

That’s utterly… that’s so cheap. It’s a totally unprofessional attempt to make a racetrack. Totally, totally, totally unprofessional. This is like the Red Sox playing at freaking Coolidge Park. [he laughs]

He’s right, of course. Baystate has been very open about the fact that they intend to hold as few horse races as legally possible, forever. To conduct any horse racing at all, they would need to secure a Category 2 gaming license from the Massachusetts Gaming Commission. This requires investing at least $7.5 million into capital development within three years of issuance of the license, and meanwhile, this license would also allow The Fairgrounds to conduct OTB and establish an online sports wagering platform. Rather than their retail business (horse racing) being subsidized by casinos like it was in the 90s, The Fairgrounds’ retail business is intended to be completely subsidized by OTB and mobile wagering.

The landfill site where the potential track would be built is about 30 acres. Is that even large enough?

It’s too small. Yeah. It’s just too small. It’s disturbing, that just shows they have no no knowledge or respect for the horses or horse racing. It’s like you want to put them in a subway station. I mean, even the casino [referring to the “sports bar”], what are they going to put in, a 7-Eleven casino? They don’t have the room for a big casino. They don’t have the parking. Where are the people gonna sit? Where are they gonna park? Where are they gonna put the trailers? I’m not even talking logistics of the track itself and the horses.

You think that even with the minimal racing they’re promising, the site is too small to be functional?

Ain’t no way. That’s not even getting into the jockeys and the outriders. And you got the trainers, and you got all their trailers. The horses all have to be worked out in the morning. They have stables, they have what’s called a paddock. The horses will go from the stables to the paddock, and then from the paddock to the racetrack once it’s their turn to run.

They only want to race two weeks out of the year, but those two weeks out of the year can do so much damage to the landscape, to the area, to the river. The barns realistically have to go in the back side. They can’t go on the track and if they’re going to make a mile track, that’s going to push the barns closer to the river. Horses, when they relieve themselves, it’s large and it stinks. There is a lot of waste. They’re getting better at containing smells, but you can’t get away from it. There’s nothing you can do, you know what I mean?

How does it compare to professional racetracks?

You should really see how huge professional racetracks are. You look at them and you just go, “holy shit”. Not so much the track itself, but the area around the track and the barn, specifically the barns, that are going to hold the horses and the trainers. These are huge areas.

He is not joking. Professional horse tracks are absolutely enormous, hard to comprehend when you’re standing on Mechanic St looking out over what seems to be a wonderfully open, spacious 30 acre landfill. 30 acres, in fact, is smaller than the generally accepted minimum size for a one mile track: 55 acres. Jack rattles off a list of tracks and we look up their sizes together. The Aqueduct Racetrack in New York: 210 acres. Florida’s Gulfstream Park: 243. Belmont: an enormous 430. Saratoga, a track he calls “quaint,” is 350. Jack seems to think Saratoga is the best track of them all. “It’s supposed to be a beautiful place,” he tells me, “I’ve been meaning to go since I’ve been, you know, and see. You can drive, it’s three and a half hours from here. And they get some wonderful horses. They get really, really good horses and good trainers. The purses are all huge.” I don’t say that it sounds like heaven for a racing fan, but I certainly think it.

So in your view, their proposal is only including a horse track as a technicality, to the detriment of the area?

It’s just not about…this is not about horse racing to them. That’s just an added thing. That’s an ingredient they need to get OTB. They could give two shits about horse racing. You want to put a horse racing track with beautiful animals, expensive animals, and you want to put it on a freaking dump in a neighborhood. Who is it going to benefit? The more I think about it, the more I look at it…I don’t know.

Like I said from the beginning, my perspective is as a horse fan, as a Thoroughbred fan, but also in full knowledge: I do have a family that lives over there, and I am concerned because I understand the ramifications of what a track could do to the neighborhood. I understand the working of a racetrack. It should not be put in a neighborhood.

I know he does. If I know anything, it’s that Jack Leger understands the workings of a racetrack. When he says it should not be put in a neighborhood I believe him, and during our last conversation, he could not emphasize that enough. “It’s asinine,” he said firmly, “I mean, talk about not caring about your residents or your people.” I couldn’t help but agree. When I thanked him again for his knowledge and time, he was gracious. He just wanted to share his perspective, as a real fan of horse racing. “And,” he said, “I think we made a lot of good points.”

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