Holiday Cheer in Short Supply

- It was a Big Bar Mitzvah weekend for the family. My sister, as she did for her older son, scheduled the service for Saturday afternoon and the party for 4PM Sunday evening, effectively turning the weekend into one long family affair. Nobody in my family - not one single person - reads this blog, so I could expose a lot of dirty secrets - or at least those known to me - and nobody would know.

But it was fine, even nice at times, despite being subjected to a lot of really bad music. I even managed to make it to the Big A for the last few races after returning home on Saturday. It was the last weekend before the annual Christmas break. It wasn't always like this; they used to race on Xmas Eve with an early post time. Originally conceived as an overdue break for horsemen and employees alike, now it also means five less days of NYRA losing money.

Unlike during final Big A weekends before holidays past, there were no jolly carolers roving around the clubhouse. Xmas decorations seemed sparse, and the Christmas village display that has for years greeted patrons as they entered through the clubhouse was gone. An electric menorah was set up near the lobby escalator with obvious haste. It was like on Friday, someone went "Oh shit...The menorah!" and got ten bucks from Charlie Hayward to run over to the Home Depot and pick one up. Between the unseasonably warm temperatures and the lack of holiday accoutrements, it felt more like Wood Memorial day that the run-up to the holiday break.

It's gotta be a tough time for NYRA employees. One can imagine that all of the uncertainty is making for a depressing holiday; and I'm assuming that the concept of holiday bonuses and salary reviews are not presently part of the corporate culture. I would also think that the relentless criticism of NYRA, in which public officials vilify the present organization for the sins of the past, must be wearying and demoralizing. Yet through it all, NYRA still runs a first class operation. The Big A is clean - the Equstrus level downright spotless - and I find that NYRA employees continue to be polite and professional, even downright cheery in many cases.

So here's a holiday shoutout to the men and women who are working under adverse conditions to keep the Big A a really cool place to come out and watch the races. Let's hope that their jobs will be safe no matter what transpires (Excelsior said in their proposal that they would be retained), and that at this time next year, they, and we, will know who'll be running the show after Dec 31, 2007. And that there will be a show to run.