David Yerby
Hot Springs has always been a gambling town. For the four decades stretching from about 1927 to 1967, the federal government considered Hot Springs to be the largest illegal gambling operation in America. There were no fewer than a dozen casinos in Hot Springs, with dice games, roulette wheels, and slot machines, and gamblers would travel from all over America to get in on the action. That action was anchored by the one type of gambling that was not illegal in Arkansas: betting on horses at the racetrack. Hot Springs has been home to Oaklawn Park since 1904, where people have been betting on the ponies off and on for more than a century.
I say off and on because there was a period of time early on when betting on horses, too, was illegal in Arkansas. And unlike the proprietors of Hot Springs’ many casinos, the owners of Oaklawn (based at the time in St. Louis) weren’t interested in defying the law. The last time they tried that, back in 1907, the governor sent the militia in to stop them from racing. But during the Great Depression, things got desperate for the gamblers of Hot Springs, and they pleaded with the newly elected governor, Marion Futrell, to let the owners open up the racetrack, so that the tourist trade might get a shot in the arm. Futrell was keen to do it, but the clergy across the state were furious. Oaklawn reopened in 1935. The tourists came back to town, and they’ve been coming back ever since.
Horse racing was once the most popular sport in America; Presidents would attend the races. Franklin Roosevelt listened to the race results on a radio in the White House. Folks would travel long distances to see a race and make a bet because, up until recently, that was the only way to experience the sport — live and in person. The popularity of the sport may have suffered over recent years, ceding ground to things like televised football and basketball. Today as well, gamblers can bet on horse races from the comfort of their own homes or casinos anywhere in the world, which has cut into the number of in-person spectators at racetracks around the country. But in Hot Springs, Arkansas, the Sport of Kings is very much alive and well.
One can count the number of honest-to-God racetrack towns in America on one hand, and Hot Springs is certainly one of them. Year after year, the spring crowds at Oaklawn are the envy of racetracks in cities 10 times the size of Hot Springs. “Racing season” is woven into the fabric of life not only in Hot Springs — 200 miles west of Memphis — but all over Arkansas, with fans traveling from every corner of the state to come spend a day at the track most weekends during the “meet”; the racing season stretches every year from mid-January to mid-April. While the pomp and circumstance of horse racing has disappeared at many big-city tracks, Hot Springs folks still get gussied up for a day at Oaklawn as if they were headed to a fancy garden party.
Dreamstime
Locals and visitors talk about horses all over town, in the bars, the coffee houses, and the hotel lobbies. Stand in the crowd waiting for a table on a weekend morning at the Pancake House downtown, and you’ll hear bad beat stories from the day before or, if you’re lucky, catch a hot tip on a big race later that day. Sit beneath the portrait of Man ‘o’ War losing his only race to Upset and eavesdrop on the table next to you, and you’re likely to hear a Hall of Fame trainer, or maybe the owner of a million-dollar thoroughbred, discuss the day’s races. But even if your neighbors are simple salt-of-the earth types, odds are they are headed to the track after they finish breakfast.
The state police eventually managed to shut down the illegal casinos in Hot Springs in the late 1960s. It took the election of a transplanted New York Republican named Winthrop Rockefeller as governor and a whole lot of Bible-thumping from the Baptists around the state to finally do it.
The racetrack, however, has not only survived; it has flourished, becoming a hotbed of hobnobbing for wealthy and influential Arkansans. The politically powerful were known to traffic in passes and box seats at Oaklawn as gifts. Longtime Governor (and future President) Bill Clinton — who grew up in the town and attended Hot Springs High School — was a regular attendee during the 1980s, as was his mother, Virginia Clinton Kelley. “I’m not sure which I liked more,” she wrote in her autobiography, “the gambling or the scene. In those days, everybody dressed for the races, and the characters who hung around were wild and colorful and larger-than-life.” Her answering-machine message said it all: “If I’m not here, I’m probably down at the racetrack.”
Today the track remains a scene, as these are boom times for Oaklawn and Hot Springs. Ironically, the legalization of casino gambling at the track has contributed to the racetrack’s success. In 2005, voters approved “games of skill” at the track, and a decent-sized casino was built alongside Oaklawn, to house slot machines, blackjack, poker, and roulette games. The largess from the casino has allowed Oaklawn to increase its purse sizes, which has in turn increased the number of quality race horses being stabled in Arkansas each winter.
Last year, Oaklawn led the country in field size. This winter there were more than 1,500 horses stabled at Oaklawn, raring to go when the 2018 season launched on January 12th. The track this year will award more than $30 million in purses, which puts this small-town racetrack very much in the big leagues when it comes to thoroughbred racing in America.
While the casinos once needed Oaklawn to get the gamblers to come to town, today the situation is reversed: The casino games keep the track in high cotton. The churches once preached hellfire and damnation against the gamblers at the track; today the First Christian Church down the street from the track advertises that their first Sunday service is over before the start of the day’s first race.
Oaklawn enjoyed a burst of national attention when perhaps the most famous American race horse of this century, Triple Crown winner American Pharoah, did his final prep for the Kentucky Derby in Hot Springs in 2015, winning the Rebel Stakes in March and the season-ending Arkansas Derby a month later. American Pharoah, of course, was the first Triple Crown winner in 37 years. His trainer, Bob Baffert, found Oaklawn an ideal “spring-training” venue for his star, and plenty of trainers have followed in his footsteps. Trainer Doug O’Neill, whose Nyquist won the Kentucky Derby the year after American Pharoah, brought 20 horses to Hot Springs for this season’s Oaklawn meet. You won’t want to miss the fun.
For three-year-old horses on the Kentucky Derby trail, Oaklawn offers four major stakes races during the season to get them ready for the first Saturday in May: the $150,000 Smarty Jones on Martin Luther King Jr. Day; the Grade 3, $500,000 Southwest on President’s Day; the Grade 2, $900,000 Rebel on St. Patrick’s Day; and the crown jewel, the Grade 1, $1,000,000 Arkansas Derby on April 14th. Not only will each of these races showcase the best three-year-old racing talent in the nation, but all four events fall on holiday weekends, when there will be plenty to do in the Spa City.
Hot Springs is a racetrack town, to be sure, but it is so much more than that. Home to America’s smallest National Park, Hot Springs boasts three lakes, mountain trails for hiking and biking, plenty of great food and colorful watering holes, and a vibrant arts and music scene. This year’s Rebel Stakes falls on the same day as the First Ever 15th Annual World’s Shortest St. Patrick’s Day Parade, an event that sets records both in brevity and levity. The one-block parade usually draws more than 30,000 spectators, scores of Elvis impersonators, lots of libation, and the occasional B- or C-list celebrity.
That particular weekend also marks the kickoff of the Valley of the Vapors Independent Music Festival, a quirky and crowded gathering that catches many of the bands traveling to and from South By Southwest in Austin. Many bands who’ve played at VOV return year after year in spite of the small-town crowd, often even planning their days off to coincide with the festival so they can hang out in Hot Springs and enjoy some old-world recreation with a soak in a bathhouse and a beer at the track. No one can resist the charms of this resort, not even urban hipster rock-and-rollers.
The season culminates on April 14th with the Arkansas Derby, and while that day may not be a holiday in the rest of the world, in Hot Springs it’s certainly the most special day of the year. Locals call the Arkansas Derby simply “The Derby,” Kentucky be damned. April 14th, three weeks before the First Saturday in May, is always referred to in Arkansas as “Derby Day.”
On Derby Day, the population of Hot Springs will more than triple. The Arkansas Derby regularly draws crowds of more than 60,000 people, making it one of the largest events in the state, rivaled only by Arkansas Razorback football games. In fact, the Arkansas Derby is one of the largest racetrack audiences in America outside of a Triple Crown or Breeders Cup event. A lot of those 60,000 will arrive in seersucker or fascinators, white bucks, and tall heels. Just as they do on most big race days, Oaklawn will open up the infield of the track to spectators to accommodate the large crowd.
There, guests will find luxury tents for private catered parties along the rail of the racetrack, so close you can (almost) reach out and touch the horses, as well as magicians and petting zoos and bouncy castles to entertain the kids while the grownups handicap the races, lounging in the shade of a dogwood tree. Throughout the crowd moves a mariachi band, a barbershop quartet, a brass ensemble playing Dixieland jazz. The governor will be on hand to present the trophy to the winner, enjoying the scene, perhaps eating a corned beef sandwich, perhaps making a bet or two.
Charles Cella, the longtime owner of the track, passed away this past December. Cella was the third generation of his family to run Oaklawn, taking the reins in 1968 the year his father died and, coincidentally, the year that the last of the illegal casinos was shuttered. Oaklawn is one of the few family-owned racetracks left in America, and the Cella family has guided the track through many a storm over the years, often outpacing their corporate-backed rivals. Charles’ sons will take over in his stead, as he wanted it, and as it has been for the last hundred years.
This is a large part of what makes Oaklawn such a unique racetrack, and what makes Hot Springs such a unique destination. Even with all that is new, it’s a town with traditions, customs, and a rich sense of history, with a beating heart that feels old and wise, inspiring a journey backwards in time.
A native of Hot Springs, David Hill’s work has appeared in the New York Times, The New Yorker, and various other publications. He is currently working on a book about the history of gambling and organized crime in Hot Springs. Hill now lives in Brooklyn, and you can read his work or contact him at his website, davidhillonline.com.
