Friday, April 30, 2004 | 9:57 a.m.
Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at [email protected] or (702) 259-4084.
Tapit's entry in Saturday's Kentucky Derby allows Las Vegas a chance to not only add to its racing lore, but brush up on its thoroughbred racing past.
Longtime residents and newcomers alike may be surprised to learn that not one but two horse-racing tracks once existed in the city, just off the Strip.
Yet it all but takes a native to actually recollect the structures, the grandstands and the clubhouses at either Thunderbird Downs or Las Vegas Park -- both of which came and went in the late 1950s and early '60s.
No one talks about bringing horse racing back to Southern Nevada, but if I had the money I'd sooner invest it in that idea than I would throwing $500 million into a ballpark and the Montreal Expos as is being discussed.
For all of the stories -- and both papers in town ran dozens of them a few years ago -- about the decline in interest in horse racing and its effect on the sports books in Las Vegas, there is still a market for the sport. Bettors may not be as plentiful as they were in some distant heyday and the plush Sport Of Kings betting parlor has long since closed its doors, but the books accommodate the horse players and a good deal of money changes hands every day.
Quite a bit of it will change hands before and after the Derby, with Tapit a sentimental choice in Las Vegas because of its owner. Ron Winchell, a Las Vegas resident of Winchell's Donuts fame and the owner of Winchell's Pub & Grill at traffic ensnarled 10620 S. Eastern, boards some 50 thoroughbreds at a farm in North East, Md., and the best of the bunch is Tapit.
He's 8-1, or the third leading betting choice, to win a race that appears wide open and includes a mix of 20 long shots and contenders.
But you have to like Tapit for his diet and training habits, if nothing else.
After all, he has gotten this far in spite of his hankerings for alcohol and grass.
The Wood Memorial champion, who has run only four races, starts his day as if he were living under a viaduct, with three raw eggs and a bottle of Guinness Stout. It's a concoction that was passed on to trainer Michael Dickinson by his Irish mentor, Vincent O'Brien, and one he dispenses to each of Winchell's horses every morning.
After that delightful breakfast -- hey, I have a hot dog every morning, so I should talk -- Tapit joins his stablemates for a training session that is unique among the country's elite horses. While most high-stakes thoroughbreds are worked on dirt tracks similar to the ones they will actually race on, Dickinson has a long, grass, all-weather track with gradual, sloping corners where he puts his horses through their paces at the 200-acre farm.
If Tapit, the son of Tap Your Heels and Pulpit, wins Saturday it appears as if he would be the first Derby winner owned by a Las Vegan.
But if Thunderbird Downs or Las Vegas Park had remained open, we may not have had to wait so long.
Thunderbird Downs was "a pretty elaborate, modern facility" according to the Nevada State Museum and Historical Society records. Located behind what was then the Thunderbird casino (in a spot later occupied by the El Rancho hotel), Thunderbird Downs was a short course that featured quarterhorses and was owned by "Big Joe" Wells of Wells Cargo fame.
Wells -- who had a daughter, Dawn, who was not only Miss Nevada in 1959 but played Mary Ann on the old TV show "Gilligan's Island" -- loved the track and, from all accounts, it was at least marginally popular in what was then a comparatively small town.
A contemporary track, Las Vegas Park, existed at the site where the Las Vegas Hilton stands today and it featured thoroughbred cards. Built, in part, by Joe W. Brown, this track allegedly wasn't as popular with the locals and it was plowed over when the Hilton -- then called The International -- was ready to be built.
Remnants of Las Vegas' association with horses still remain, of course, and short, oval tracks (including one or two with grandstands) can be spied by drivers traveling along city roads such as Edna and Pecos. Beautiful horses continue to reside at a few of these quaint farms, even as civilization infringes.
Saturday in Louisville a horse with a drinking man's metabolism, who has never seen Las Vegas but whose Las Vegas connections abound, will try to make himself at least a footnote, or hoofnote, in this city's sports history.
In the Run for the Roses, let's hope he does a little better than simply stagger home.
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