School of Hard Knocks and Early Education for Racetrack Kids
Kim Brooking exercising a horse at Belmont Park. Photo by Lili Holzer-Glier.
Kim Brooking, 26, supports herself, her boyfriend Mike Kaetzel, and their 12-month-old son, Joseph, on $75 a day exercising horses at Belmont Park racetrack. At $15 a piece, some days she gets on three horses, sometimes eight. The couple once earned upwards of $60,000 together until they both were laid off from permanent jobs.
Tammy Edwards, 41, earns $56 a day, plus tips, selling programs at Ozone Park’s Aqueduct Racetrack. She supports herself and her two sons, 12 and six, on $13,440 a year, $4,870 below the poverty line for a family of three. She may make another $10 to $50 a day in tips, but she can never count on that.
Elena, 38, an undocumented Mexican immigrant, and her partner Raul, 29, support their three young children, all U.S. citizens, on $25,000 to $35,000 a year (the family’s first names have been changed to protect their identities). They work at Belmont as “hot walkers,” the staff who cools down the horses, walking them around the barns after they exercise.
These are racetrack families, native and foreign-born, who live in a tight-knit and often secretive world that make up horse racing’s backside in New York’s Belmont Park in Long Island and Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens.
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Having a baby at the track is not easy, says Kim. Money is always tight. Since her
boyfriend, Mike, was laid off from his job as an assistant trainer, the young family lives
on $500 a week.
Kim says she wouldn’t mind the racetrack life for her son, “You can be
the down and out gambler that lives on the track and doesn’t have nothin’ or you could
work as an assistant trainer and do pretty well for yourself.”
Photo and text by Lili Holzer-Glier.
As day breaks, Kim is already galloping her first mount of the day. Kim grew up around horses. Her parents own a small farm in upstate New York where they breed a handful of racehorses a year. She began exercising thoroughbreds when she was only 16. The experience has made her well-acquainted with the profession’s dangers.
Two years ago a horse flipped on its back with Kim’s legs still
around it. Her pelvis was shattered in three places. Kim recovered, but her dreams of becoming a professional jockey were put on hold when she discovered she was going to have a baby, only days before she was scheduled to ride her first race. “I could have rode in that race but I just couldn’t do it. I was already 12 weeks along. What if I fell?”
Photo and text by Lili Holzer-Glier.
"I love being on the road. There isn't anywhere I ever want to be," says Kim. She'd like to keep moving for work. "Joe might have to switch schools a lot. I knew some people who grew up on racetracks and they don't seem that messed up."
Photo and text by Lili Holzer-Glier.
This nomadic lifestyle has proven impossible with an infant. “Racetrackers like us
usually don’t have nothin’, they’re always ready to pick up and leave. But now we have a
baby.”
Photo and text by Lili Holzer-Glier.
Elena and Raul’s basement apartment offers 500 feet of living space. There is no sunlight. The floor tiles are cracked, exposed pipes line the ceiling, and the bedrooms hold nothing but beds. There is no yard for the children so they leap from bed to bed and race in tiny circles, tripping over their parents, siblings and dogs. But the couple makes sure the apartment is immaculate. The beds are always made, the floors scrubbed and the dishes washed. Elena painted the apartment bright blue. “It helps me think of the sky,” she says.
Although Raul says he wouldn’t mind the racetrack life for his children, Elena counters that she doesn’t want her kids anywhere near the track. “We came here so they could have a better life. I want them to get an education, to have careers.”
She worries that her youngest son Alexander, who attends Anna House, is two-years-old and refuses to speak a word of Spanish or English. Her six-year old son, Brian, who also attended Anna House, is now in school, earning A pluses. Her seven-year-old, Mark, could care less about school. He loves Barbie dolls, Lady Gaga and proudly announces that he’s going to be the next Gucci.
“I try to help my kids with their homework,” says Jose, “but there’s only so much I can do. I didn’t go to school. I learned my English from watching TV.” While the parents are undocumented, the children were all born in America and hold U.S. passports. The names of the children have been changed here to protect the family's identity.
Photo and text by Lili Holzer-Glier.
Elena and her partner Raul have been deported to Mexico twice. Determined to give their children a better future, they risked their lives to return to America, and the racetrack. Elena has worked the past 13 years as a hot walker. She earns $350 a week.
Photo and text by Lili Holzer-Glier.
Life on the track isn’t easy, especially for undocumented workers. “I always hear
people saying, ‘stupid Mexican,’ thinking I don’t understand or that I’m not even there,”
says Raul. “But I don’t mind the work and getting up at four every morning. The first
thing I think is I’ve got to get up so I can take care of my family.”
Photo and text by Lili Holzer-Glier.
Tammy struggles to support her two kids after she turned in her abusive, alcoholic husband---who was undocumented---to be
deported to Mexico. Her minimum wage job selling racing programs barely keeps her
family alive. “These kids have heard it all and seen it all. They grew up way too fast.
Just like I did,” she says.
But instead of seeking handouts, she gets her children off to
school each day and heads for the fading but still majestic track to flirt with customers in
hopes that they will give her enough tips to supplement her meager $56 a day earnings.
Still, she would be at a loss to do anything else. “The racetrack is the only thing I’ve ever
known.”
Photo and text by Lili Holzer-Glier.
Tammy grew up traveling track to track with her mother, who was a thoroughbred trainer. Tammy shares her dank one bedroom apartment with her two children, her mother and
a friend who recently became homeless. Despite nearly constant difficulties, Tammy’s
family is exceptionally close. Almost every night the boys crawl into bed with their mother to cuddle. “It’s a little tight, but they still like to snuggle up to me and go to sleep. They know I love them.”
Photo and text by Lili Holzer-Glier.
Constant poverty and family turmoil has taken its toll on Tammy’s sons. Tammy’s
youngest suffers from severe Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and crumbles
whenever his absent father is mentioned. Tammy’s eldest has violent outbursts, often
directed at his brother and mother.
Photo and text by Lili Holzer-Glier.
Although racetracks employ thousands of parents nationwide, Belmont Park is the only track in the country with daycare. Each day about 50 children out of the 800 or so belonging to Belmont Park’s 2,000 track workers arrive at the Anna House Day Care Center. The executive director of Anna House, Donna Chenkin, estimates it costs about $17,000 a year to care for each child, though most racetrack parents pay nowhere near that amount. Before Kim and Mike lost their salaried jobs, they were paying $1,200 a month for daycare, based on their income. Now Mike cares for Joseph at home while Kim brings in the only paycheck.
“It’s been hard,” says Brooking about her role as a new mother whose job entails hard, physical work. “Anna House was awesome and I think Joe misses it a lot.”
Available only to children of track workers, Anna House opened in 1998 and caters to the peculiarities of racetrack life. It opens at 5 a.m. so parents can make it to work on time. To accommodate the large Spanish-speaking community, all employees are bilingual. According to Chenkin, the racetrack’s extreme hours make it nearly impossible for parents to find babysitters or use traditional daycare. “Parents were desperate,” says Chenkin, “When they had to work they’d leave their kids in cars, or let them sleep in the horses’ stalls. It’s just dangerous.”
Besides being a safe haven for track kids, Anna House provides essential early education for children. “Some kids who were born in the U.S. come in here and don’t speak English,” says Chenkin, “We help them learn the language, and I think it gives them a huge advantage compared to other racetrack kids starting school.”
All of Elena’s three children were enrolled in Anna House at just six weeks old. Her older boys graduated from the program but still receive biweekly tutoring. “They all love it,” she says, “and I think it’s helping them in school.”
Chenkin began her career at the United Nations, setting up child crisis centers in Somalia and Bosnia. She says working at Anna House is not much different. “The issues are the same: parents always want their kids to be safe, and once safety is established, then they want them to get some education. I know this is America and it’s supposed to be the land of milk and honey, but the poverty here is the same as in a third world country. Poverty is poverty.”
Anna House charges parents on a sliding scale. A single mother making $350 per week as a hot walker is charged a nominal fee or receives free day care. A couple making $1,300 a week, similar to what Kim and Mike earned, are charged the full amount. Although Mike is now unemployed, Kim’s average $500 weekly pay is still too high to receive free daycare, but not high enough to pay for day care and feed the family.
Chenkin says the track workers she has met have been almost invariably hardworking and dedicated to providing a better life for their children.
Both of Tammy Edwards’ boys were enrolled in the Anna House program for most of their young lives. “Not only did I know my kids were safe, they were learning a lot too. Anna House was a blessing.”
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