“Writing is easy,” Roberts shares from a time-honored adage. “Just open a vein and bleed.” (Photo Provided by Ohio Harness Horseman Association)
An interesting story to follow, of how a talent got its start, some encouragement, and how it all turned out to be a huge success. The first person story of author Bob Roberts.
By Bob Roberts
The 13-year-old boy not only thought that he was soon going to be rich, he was also going to see America on somebody else’s dime. Well, at least he’d see the south side of Chicago.
For a kid who had only been on both sides of the Cuyahoga River in his hometown of Cleveland, Oh., an overnight trip to the Windy City, especially one including an evening in the clubhouse dining room as well as the barn area of old Sportsman’s Park, was quite a big deal.
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It was 1961 and young Alan, a freshly-turned teenager, had picked up a great summer job. A man two houses down from his parent’s house in suburban Willowick had asked him to mow his lawn at least once a week. Alan was paid more than he should have been by the generous neighbor. But there was another treat.
The man said he owned a harness horse and wanted to know if Alan would like to join him and his wife (they had no children) at the end of the week to see the pacer race at Sportsman’s.
Equaling the world record for saying “yes,’’ Alan got the okay from his parents and was packed in no time and ready to hit the highway. And, he would have his own room at some tidy motor lodge near the track. C’mon, all this and a motel room of his own?
Dinner in the clubhouse was great, a little better than how the horse raced. It finished third.
The couple told Alan the night would conclude with a visit to the Sportsman’s barn area to see their horse, feed him a carrot or two, and then enjoy an after-the-races snack with the horse’s trainer-driver at a nearby coffee shop.
Alan was too young and too new to harness racing to know that he was snacking with greatness. The trainer-driver gentlemen sitting across from him was none other than the legendary Hall of Famer, Joe O’Brien, winner of two Little Brown Jugs (Shadow Wave in ’54 and Melvin’ Woe in ’73) and the 1955 Trotting Triple Crown winner with Scott Frost.
The Chicago trip sold Alan on harness racing. He was now following the entries and results in the daily newspaper . . . and following his father to Northfield Park.
“I wasn’t the first kid to tag along with his dad to the track,” said Alan. “It’s how a lot of us fell in love with the game. My dad even bought a box for the season with four seats in it. We were there a lot. And, when I discovered you can leave the track with the next night’s program in your hand, I really got into handicapping.”
Reading the newspaper every day to follow the action helped convinced Alan he’d like a career in journalism, perhaps as a racing writer. He loved baseball, but the thought of being on the road 200 days a year didn’t appeal to him.
It was racing, and he not only reached for it, he began capturing it on the keys of typewriters, word processors and laptops.
Alan worked his way up from twice weekly papers, to suburban dailies to big metropolitan editions.
He loved the dedication and wholesomeness of county fair races where owners and trainers were more satisfied by how fast their horses raced than how much they earned. Love them lifetime marks.
While writing his way to the major daily papers, Alan covered the Lake County Fair in Painesville, Oh. like it was the Breeders Crown, filling a suburban paper with feature stories, race recaps, race selections and full results with prices.
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Alan took notes during Little Brown Jug week as to how track officials made all race winners feel important. Flowers in the winner’s circle were for everybody who earn their way into it, no matter if the purse was $5,500 or $55,000. Or if the winning connections were from The Meadowlands or the Morrow County Fair in Mt. Gilead.
Alan also covered thoroughbred racing and enjoyed its pageantry and colorful characters, but he always returned to his harness racing roots. The reason was simple. It was the feeling he got when he was around the people in the barn areas of standardbred tracks. He felt their dedication to the horse and their eagerness to share their stories was the ultimate daily double for a racing writer.
There is great debate as to who first said (or wrote it), but there is a saying regarding the difficulty of putting pen to paper — “Writing is easy. Just open a vein and bleed.”
Alan was lucky. His veins have remained closed and only a few times has he had to overcome writer’s block. Feature story ideas have fallen into his lap and he quickly expanded them into essays that people found interesting enough to read and enjoy.
The years and the reporter’s notebooks have piled up on Alan’s desk. He finds it hard to believe that he’s been writing for parts of seven decades. He’s grateful that God has allowed him to continue to be able to string sentences together.
A few years ago, Alan received a phone call that he never expected. It was from a representative of the United States Harness Writers Association. He had been voted into the Communicator’s Hall of Fame in Goshen, N.Y.
It didn’t hit him until he toured the Hall of Fame that Alan had come full circle with Joe O’Brien. Down the hall, around a corner or two from where Alan’s Communicator’s plaque is displayed, is the tribute to O’Brien, inducted into the Hall of Fame 1970.
Over 60 years after having a sandwich together in Chicago, Alan is once again close to O’Brien.
By the way, Alan is my middle name, and this is my story as to how I fell in love with harness racing.
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