I grew up a few short miles from Los Alamitos Race Course in Garden Grove in Orange County in the 1960s and 1970s. My earliest memories of the modest track—now in the news as the unlikely home of Kentucky Derby winner California Chrome—are seeing it from the back seat of my mother’s car as we drove down Katella Avenue to the Pasty House for Cornish meat pies. Who were the people, I wondered, that frequented the Starting Gate Bar or stayed at Don’s Turf Motel?

When I was around 9, Los Alamitos began to take some hazy shape in my mind, as rumor spread that a family on my street spent their nights at the track. The idea that people left their houses and glowing television sets after dinner was incomprehensible to a young boy who had dinner at home—5:30 sharp every night of the week as soon as Dad pulled into the driveway.

It was years later when I realized what a glorious place Los Alamitos was. At barely 16, my best friend Dave and I would put $3 of regular into his brown Ford Maverick and head to the old Cypress golf course, where you could play 18 holes for less than $10. A few of the back nine holes were behind the barns on the track’s property, and we always got a great view of the infield lake and the grandstand that stood empty during the day. All the action would come under the lights, beginning at 7:30 p.m., when the quarter horses and harness racing began.

Which is what I discovered when I lumbered over legal drinking age. Or maybe I was nearly at drinking age when my friends and I finally took advantage of our proximity to this track and its welcoming attitude toward beer coolers for the quarter horses races. Quarter horses are literally a breed apart—they sprint fast and run shorter than the thoroughbreds, turning their races into seconds-long bursts of excitement. There is nothing quite like it. My friends and I relished, too, the contrast between Los Alamitos and Disneyland, where we were working summer jobs. Every night, they’d scrub the theme park down and repaint it. But the track always smelled like rot and decay.

The Los Alamitos of my youth was a small track, and it’s still a small track—though without the frame of reference of bigger venues, it didn’t seem small to me then. Bets were made, and races won and lost, but what stood out for me were all the characters you’d see at the track. My buddies and I bet for fun; the people around us—mostly men, from all kinds of backgrounds—placed their wagers with the faces of those making life-or-death decisions. Kids roamed around picking up betting slips off the ground to sort through later, looking for a discarded winner. The sights and smells of the place did not fit my cloistered upbringing.

My mother still lives in the house I grew up in, though my childhood friends and I have scattered. But the track is still in me. I’ve dabbled in owning thoroughbreds over the years. And I still go to races with friends, though they’re not the same friends, and it’s not the same track, either; living in L.A., Santa Anita is now the destination. Los Alamitos, always the little track in the O.C., seems even littler.

But give Los Alamitos this much: It’s outlasted Inglewood’s Hollywood Park—originally the horseracing playground of the movie elite—which shut down in December. The fact that Los Alamitos has held out is a testament to its current owner, Dr. Ed Allred, who is also well-known as the co-founder of Family Planning Associates Medical Group, an abortion services provider. Some say that the track will only last as long as Dr. Allred does.

Los Alamitos is currently undergoing millions in renovations needed to accommodate a mile-long track for thoroughbred racing. Perhaps I’ll finally stop by the Starting Gate Bar for a quick one on my way to first post next season.

The post Los Alamitos Race Course In All Its Decaying Glory appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

While I’ve never taken a carriage ride in Manhattan’s Central Park, I’ve petted the sweet-smelling horses as they stand lined up, noses in their feedbags, while sparrows jump about them on the prowl for loose grain. Tourists snap pictures of the hansom cabs and the drivers in top hats, and the atmosphere is one of romantic obsolescence.

So I was upset when New York’s new mayor, Bill de Blasio, made his first order of business to go after these carriages. “We are going to quickly and aggressively move to make horse carriages no longer a part of the landscape in New York City,” he promised in a news conference after his election. “They are not humane.”

Perhaps de Blasio believes that all horses should be roaming the plains in freedom as “living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West,” as described by the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971. Or perhaps, as a number of people have suggested, de Blasio was influenced by campaign contributions from developers with an eye on the stables. Whatever the case, the mayor is not only destroying the livelihood of 300 of the working citizens he claims to be in office to help. He is also pushing a policy to which even the horses themselves might object.

To be sure, the city environment is not ideal for horses—or, for that matter, humans. Evolution has not designed any species to walk on hard asphalt, to compete for space with cars and trucks, or to breathe in polluted city air. But, as Dean W. Richardson, a professor of surgery and chief of large animal surgery at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, recently wrote in The New York Times, “horses have been a domesticated species for a very long time and adapt surprisingly well if they are given appropriate care.”

The life of a New York City carriage horse is actually not bad. Unlike the mustang, it doesn’t have to find food or water, nor must it avoid the wrath of ranchers or flee federal roundups—from which many horses are possibly being sent to the slaughterhouse, in spite of laws of prevent it.

Also, unlike millions of Americans, carriage horses have a job, one with enviable privileges. How many Americans are guaranteed a workday lasting no more than nine hours, with compulsory time off when the Fahrenheit temperature falls below 18 degrees or rises above 90 degrees? How many of us are legally entitled to a small dwelling, equipped with soft padding on the floor, running water, and a healthy diet, all under the supervision of a medical professional appointed to safeguard our interests? And how many of us get five weeks of mandatory vacation?

I bet Manhattan’s pedicab drivers look with envy at the benefits that the city’s horses take for granted.

Some people say horses are obsolete. “It’s the year 2014,” Allie Feldman of NYCLASS (New Yorkers for Clean Livable and Safe Streets) told MSNBC. “There’s no reason to have a horse drag a tourist around the city anymore. There are so many things to do in New York City without putting an animal at risk. New York City is better than this.”

True, this is 2014, and the city does not need horse-drawn carriages. Nor does Rockefeller Center need an ice-skating rink or a Christmas tree. Nor does Britain need the royal family. But think how much poorer the cityscape would be without this tradition, which dates back to 1858.

Some people say horses are dangerous. “These sensitive animals become unwitting weapons who can kill or injure themselves or passers-by,” writes Elizabeth Forel of Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages. Yes, horses can be dangerous, if improperly controlled. But horses have not caused a single human fatality in New York City.

Even if the horse-drawn carriage were banned, what would happen to the horses? According to the mayor, they would go to “sanctuaries.” But, unless they get to run around in pastures all day long, horses, like humans, want to have a job. When they are deprived of a daily work routine, they get bored and develop any number of number of disorders, including cribbing, pawing, weaving, blanket-chewing, head-bobbing, and other repetitive actions.

The horse is a beast of burden, however harsh that may sound, and without its burden—as a draft horse, racehorse, show jumper, dressage artist, circus performer, or pony-ride pony—it serves no obvious purpose in the modern world. Unlike dogs, whose lives now imitate those of humans to a frightening degree, horses are too big to jump into bed with you, and they don’t take well to the latest fashions in rainwear. Horses will never be house pets. Still, if permitted, they can remain valued equine companions to their owners and indispensable partners to carriage drivers. And, if the mayor remains incapable of getting the streets plowed during snowstorms, a saddled-up horse can offer good transportation, too.

The post Stop It, Mayor de Blasio. You’re Scaring the Horses. appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.