Aqueduct Photos: Where Horses Race, but No One Wins
Jan 3, 2015 1:50:15 GMT -5
Post by Jon on Jan 3, 2015 1:50:15 GMT -5
Depressing, Do think he went out of his way to get photos for this article but a day at the Big A isn't like a day at Belmont. Depressing place. Am betting most tracks are the same on a dreary winter day.
Photographs at Aqueduct Racetrack: Where Horses Race, but No One Wins
By JOHN LELANDJAN. 2, 2015
NY Times
Link to photos:
www.nytimes.com/2015/01/04/nyregion/photographs-at-aqueduct-racetrack-where-horses-race-but-no-one-wins.html?emc=edit_tnt_20150102&nlid=56238282&tntemail0=y&_r=1#slideshow/100000003425706/100000003425723
Thoroughbred horse racing provides one of the great American spectacles: the magnificently chiseled athletes, the elemental contest of speed and power, the libidinal rush of personal fortunes won or lost by the margins of a split second.
The photographer Theo Zierock, who spent last winter shooting Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens, found none of that. What he found instead was a decaying building populated by lonely old men.
“Some say it’s a retirement home,” said Mr. Zierock, 24, who came to New York from northern Italy to study photojournalism at the International Center of Photography. “They don’t care much about whether the track is preserved. They just complain about it.”
Sanitation and security were poor, Mr. Zierock said. Last year a disabled woman with the mental capacity of a 2-year-old was sexually assaulted in the women’s restroom on Super Bowl Sunday. “There’s a lot of serious psychological damage there,” the photographer said. “Not all of them should be free on the street.”
Mr. Zierock said the gamblers initially rebuffed him. But after a month, they opened up. “One guy was divorced,” he said. “One used to be a drag queen. Now he has health issues so he can’t drink or do drugs anymore, so he goes to the track. One guy’s first memory of a racetrack was his father dying of a heart attack at a racetrack. Most of the people had a story like that.”
He met only one gambler who consistently won, he said. Everyone else accepted their small losses as the price of a day’s distraction, and the losses of others as a small reward. More than money, Mr. Zierock said, “the thing they like is being right” — making a prediction before a race, then throwing it in the face of the naysayers if it comes true.
“That’s why they don’t care if they lose,” he said. “They gamble for gambling’s sake. They know no one wins.”
Photographs at Aqueduct Racetrack: Where Horses Race, but No One Wins
By JOHN LELANDJAN. 2, 2015
NY Times
Link to photos:
www.nytimes.com/2015/01/04/nyregion/photographs-at-aqueduct-racetrack-where-horses-race-but-no-one-wins.html?emc=edit_tnt_20150102&nlid=56238282&tntemail0=y&_r=1#slideshow/100000003425706/100000003425723
Thoroughbred horse racing provides one of the great American spectacles: the magnificently chiseled athletes, the elemental contest of speed and power, the libidinal rush of personal fortunes won or lost by the margins of a split second.
The photographer Theo Zierock, who spent last winter shooting Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens, found none of that. What he found instead was a decaying building populated by lonely old men.
“Some say it’s a retirement home,” said Mr. Zierock, 24, who came to New York from northern Italy to study photojournalism at the International Center of Photography. “They don’t care much about whether the track is preserved. They just complain about it.”
Sanitation and security were poor, Mr. Zierock said. Last year a disabled woman with the mental capacity of a 2-year-old was sexually assaulted in the women’s restroom on Super Bowl Sunday. “There’s a lot of serious psychological damage there,” the photographer said. “Not all of them should be free on the street.”
Mr. Zierock said the gamblers initially rebuffed him. But after a month, they opened up. “One guy was divorced,” he said. “One used to be a drag queen. Now he has health issues so he can’t drink or do drugs anymore, so he goes to the track. One guy’s first memory of a racetrack was his father dying of a heart attack at a racetrack. Most of the people had a story like that.”
He met only one gambler who consistently won, he said. Everyone else accepted their small losses as the price of a day’s distraction, and the losses of others as a small reward. More than money, Mr. Zierock said, “the thing they like is being right” — making a prediction before a race, then throwing it in the face of the naysayers if it comes true.
“That’s why they don’t care if they lose,” he said. “They gamble for gambling’s sake. They know no one wins.”
