The Du Quoin State Fair brings all sorts of people together, but Monday night it brought two old acquaintances back together at the horse track
August 27, 2003
Story by Moustafa Ayad and Zack Creglow
By the sidelines stands a group of elderly men.
Some are stroking their beards; one has stomped out a smoldering cigarette.
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They stand nodding, and another is pacing.
They are the anxiety-driven, living a race-to-race existence in which they seem positive of their choices, choices that can cost.
Inside the momentous hall of the Du Quoin racetrack at the State Fair Grounds are the masses of everyday people all humbly going about their day-making choices. Monday, Aug. 25, was the first day of races at the State Fair Grounds, starting off the first under-the-lights race ever of the Filly World Trotting Derby in Du Quoin. The lights themselves cost $800,000.
But the lights were not there to view the lights; they sought the thrill of the trotters, the swiftness and grace of the pacers and, of course, the prospect of winning cold, hard cash.
The people all seem to have a story to tell, or advice to give, but the real pros are quiet, calculated and follow no rules for success. They know how to win, and win they must.
Some people pass the screens searching for a name to catch their eye – Kind of Smokey, Sugar Donut or Mr. Whistlebritches. Steve Stone stands against a pole idly. Checking his race listing, reading the abbreviations in fine print, b for “black,” PU DNF for “pulled but didn’t finish,” all of this is old for Stone. He is a man who needs no listing. He could read a horse by simply smelling him.
Alongside him are mumblers, people who confer with themselves. Speaking and conversing with themselves in the most intense of dialogues, they seem odd but not out of place. There are many brows within the hall being rubbed and wiped of sweat, but Stone is cool.
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Poe is far from the favorite. A black Colt, a male who is 4 years of age or younger, he has only won a lifetime of $1,805. But Stone is playing to win. And the first bet must be the smart bet. He glides up to the betting booth and places $20 on Poe to win. This is an attempt to get ahead early.
Stone is sure of himself. He has no look of a downtrodden gambler, and he walks upright and almost bounces on the balls of his feet as he walks, exuding confidence. All around him are various degrees of betters from the novice to the tacit pro. But he has an upper hand.
“The first horse race I ever drove was in Springfield in a preview race. I had a 3-year-old philly, and man, she was a good one,” he said with the trumpets blowing signaling the beginning of the race. “I mean, I am about to puke my guts out sitting there in that paddock. I am just sitting there a nervous wreck, thinking about all the things that can go wrong.
“First race I ever drove, I won.”
Stone raced horses for 10 years and was turned on to the gambling and handling side of the event by his friend, Tim Barbre, when they bought their first horse, Dreamy Girl, 12 years ago.
He hasn’t handled or ridden horses since, but he’s become an avid horse race gambler, coming to the race in Du Quoin since the mid 1980s. Last year was the first year he skipped out. Stone is a businessman with a shrewd sense of money; if his betting is a mirror of how he runs his business in Carmi at a restaurant named “Two Tony’s,” where he is the self-proclaimed fried chicken king, then he is making a killing.
Back at the betting booths, where Stone stands in front of the screen, fixated on the live feed of the track watching the horses race by, he simply peers at the tube quietly and stays stoic. This is a trotter race. If a trotter breaks stride, the horse and driver are disqualified. Stone detests these races.
“I hate these damn trotting races,” Stone said, drawing a pull off his cigarette. “I bet on them, but I am not as confident betting on them as I am the pacing races.”
Poe is going head to head with one of the finest racing teams the fair has ever seen:the Miller brothers and their cavalry of well-handled and driven horses.
“I’ve known Miller for over 15 years,” he said. “But, I got to try and get ahead.”
This race they are racing Blake’s Charger with 3-to-1 odds, meaning for every $1 a better invests, given the horse wins, the better wins $3. Poe has 4-to-1 odds – not the poorest of chances, but enough to provide Stone a necessary start to an evening of gambling.
Two minutes later it’s over, and Stone shakes his head.
“Got to go for the big-time chalk,” he said, sporting a broad smile.
Going for the “chalk” is betting on the sure-fire winner, and the next race will have to be a winner if Stone wants to climb out of the $20 hole he is in.
Seven races later, $350 is distributed into the pockets of the tellers in the booths. Stone is 3-for-7 and $20 behind; this is the race where he can change his luck, the eighth race.
“Didn’t get it,” is all he said, shaking his head and rubbing a smoldering cigarette into the ground with his foot.
Now is the time he puts money on the house favorite, Aries Conquest.
Inside the paddock where the horse drivers wait for their turn to race stands a yellow and white striped awning. The drivers sit underneath and watch each race on a small television. Those who couldn’t get a seat on the lawn chairs lean over the man in front of them to better their sights.
One driver, though, was not huddled under the awning.
He was different. More calm, more laid back and without a dip of chew tucked under his lip or cigarette dangling from it. Not to say that these drivers in the paddocks are all chain smokers; they just didn’t have the same cool demeanor to them as Andy Miller did. He didn’t need a stimulant to subdue his nerves. There weren’t any.
Horseracing was a big deal to him. He just made it seem like it wasn’t.
This could be explained in a multitude of ways. It could be due to the fact he has been driving for 16 years and is a cagy veteran. It could be because he just won the crown at the state fair in Springfield, the first big race of the year for the standard horses.
Or it could be the way he was raised taught him to be more stoic than the average Joe.
“I grew up around horses all the time,” Miller said. “I grew up Amish up in Arthur, Illinois. When I was about 20 years old I got started in horse driving.”
Like him, the horse he is driving in the eighth race is not like the rest. Aries Conquest, a 2-year-old filly, has an unblemished record through eight races in her young career.
The horse stood in the same relaxed manner as her driver did, knowing that she is just that good.
Aries Conquest was the horse that Miller rode to the victory circle at the Springfield state fair. This is the horse that has accumulated $44,058 and is the 4-to-5 odds-on favorite to rake in another $5,000 purse in the pacer race.
She is the talk of horseracing enthusiasts at the Du Quoin State Fair.
“She is as good as any horse I’ve ever raced,” Miller said. “I’ve drove some really nice racing fillies, and she is as good as any of them.”
This is Miller’s life. He competes in these harness races for a living. He’s not a construction worker, schoolteacher or fireman on the side; just a horse driver. That is his means for money. That means he has to do it a lot to maintain his style of living at his home in Beecher.
“It seems I race every night during the summer,” Miller said. “I do these fairs a lot. It pays all right. I am making a living on it.”
On this lucid night under the lights, Miller drives all of the horses that his brother Irvin trains. His brother trains a large number of these equines that one would see at a state fair.
With the constant bustle going on around the paddocks, most people would lose their minds in the madness of it all – the lights, the sounds, the carnies begging for attention and the pressure.
Thankfully, he has no time to think or let his mind wander.
“I am going back out to race every 15 minutes,” Miller said.
After the races, he hops off the harness he rides and walks back into the paddock. He is always loose and easy-going. He should be with the way he is performing on this night.
With five races in the books, Miller has a second and a third-place finish to his name.
After his third-place finish, one fellow driver asks how the horse ran for him.
Miller looks at the driver with a half smile and replies, “She doesn’t know what she wants to do. We could have had second there.” He then motions his hands like he is beating a drum to signify that the horse was running in an offbeat gallop.
But neither Sing With Me nor Grant’s Charger, the two horses Miller drove, can compare with Aries Conquest. They are fine horses in the trotter races, but they don’t have that innate sense of when to kick it to a higher gear like Aries Conquest does.
Aries Conquest knows she is special. She has felt the crowd’s applause after all of her victories. Of course, she is going to thirst for more.
“Horses like to win,” Miller said. “A horse knows when they are winning. They know they have done something special. They have a lot of sense about them.”
In the eighth race, Miller plans to let Aries Conquest dictate how he should race. The horse is 8-for-8 in first-place finishes, and he figures he should go with what got him here. Or, as the old saying goes, “Ride the horse that got you there.”
“She can race on the front end and she can race from behind,” Miller said. “I can only do what’s best for the horse. There is some planning going into the race, but you also have to let the race unfold.”
The eighth race is next up. His brother just picked up another third in the seventh race, and Irvin is waiting for his brother to stroll back into the paddock to get Aries Conquest.
Irvin has invested a great amount of time into Aries. He knows how she moves, how she feels and what she is thinking as well as anyone.
“That is a fine filly there,” said Irvin, a burly, quiet man with massive hands to go with his stature. “She’s a good one.”
Andy becomes noticeable in the distance walking back to the paddocks from the track. The silhouette of this man is larger than his natural height of 5-foot-8. He walks in from his last race worn, tired and dusty but willing to persevere.
As Andy makes his way into the paddocks, he and his brother both share a smirk. They know what kind of horse they got racing in a few minutes.
“I’m ready,” Andy said. “I hope her streak doesn’t end here. I don’t like making assumptions. It can be bad karma.”
Then over the loudspeakers, a trumpeter plays a “Call to the Post,” and Miller rides off on Aries Conquest into the solemn dark blue skyline that sits above the track.
Stone stood in the stands, eyeing the track.
He had emerged from the confines of the hall to view the races, dispensing his knowledge only when it befitted him. Miller was lining up the horses for the start of the eighth race.
There were seven horses in a row. Stone had done this before racing in his younger days, and the sheer adrenaline could scare anyone off the starting line.
“You sit there behind the horse and you can feel the pull,” he said. “They are grunting and snorting. You can feel the power.”
In a blink of an eye they were off, with $110 riding on Aries Conquest and a $20 exacta, a bet that would land Conquest first and Fox Valley Mickala second. Stone stands peering intently.
Clapping in unison with the clops and trots of the horse’s hooves in a rhythmic pace, Stone edged his bets on with his yelling. “Come on. Come on,” he screamed in the breaks of his clapping with his lips pressed tight.
Around the first bend Conquest took an early lead, and following behind was Apple Betty, who at one point took the lead. They rounded the first corner, and the dirt came off their hooves in a spray of earth. Apple Betty and Fox Valley Mickala were neck and neck.
And then a horse made a break.
Apple Betty overtook Fox Valley Mickala, but not Aries Conquest.
The race was over.
Stone was not shaken. The $120 in the race is not gone. He has lost $10 but is now $50 ahead. Aries Conquest has won, but the exacta could have led to a $210 lead.
This was not the night where Aries Conquest would lose her streak, but the moderate drama should come as no surprise. Miller wisely chose not to push Aries Conquest. She needs to be fresh for Saturday’s pacer race final. And the $60,000 purse that goes to the winner.
“That horse came up on me a little at the end,” Miller said. “But I wasn’t urging her too much. She did it pretty much on her own. They are taught to be race horses.”
Reporter Moustafa Ayad can be reached at [email protected]
Reporter Zack Creglow can be reached at [email protected]
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