Wolverine Raceway 1977

[wilderness]

Are you able to ID all four?
Names will be provided with moderate participation.

Title should read 1975

[stasu1213]

Al Ackermann and Jack Legoff

[wilderness]

stasu, thanks. You caught the easy ones, as they were on the tube nightly.
The horseman in colors should almost be as easy.
The gent on the far right, although not well-known locally was the then publicity director at Wolverine. Had Nationally syndicated columns.

[Zacha341]

One is a jockey, right? ----

[Bigb23]

The one in the jockey colors is Johnny Ginger, right? He was a horse guy.

[softailrider]

Jockey seems kind of big for a jockey.

[CassTechGrad]

I don't think that guy in the jockey suit is Mr. Ginger. This is the real Johnny in the pic.

[Uncledave54]

One is a jockey, right? ----

Wolverine was harness racing. They used drivers, not jockeys.

[Uncledave54]

Is the guy on the right Bill Rayle.

[EastsideAl]

"Wolverine Raceway" was DRC under another name that was used for harness racing, correct?

[Al Publican]

Track was in Livonia, Hazel Park, or Northville?

[wilderness]

uncledave, ditto!

eastsideal, from 1950 [[when DRC opened) through 1984 [[last year of harness racing there) the facility was leased for the harness racing meets.

Al Publican, track was in Livonia at Schoolcraft & Middlebelt [[in fact Livonia as a city didn't even exist until the track opened). Big Shopping center [[Cotsco) and industrial area today. I'm told that the arches for the former racetrack entrance remain intact from the Middlebelt road entrance.

[wilderness]

unclecleave, good guess on Rayle [[would've fit right in with Ackerman and LeGoff), but not he.

[wilderness]

FWIW, somebody will get the MI Hall of Fame horseman/driver.
The B on his chest [[along with his colors) a giveaway.

[wilderness]

The gent on the right wrote some colorful harness racing columns. Some thought he was daft, while most enjoyed his humor.
Here's a Mar 1976 article.
The horse gets the vote
despite 'rocky' campaign
The inherently frigid pet rock, backed with a gestation period of something like three million years even if violated by a falling stalactite or a pitching stalagmite, could have easily upset all the little kiddies' recent bicentennial voting for America's favorite animal.

Unveiled in a sea of stony stares this past Christmas by hawkers who at first seemed to be dipping into their own heads for the product, the pet rocks rumbled down upon the American domestic scene like a nightmare avalanche.

Seized upon principally by late shopping husbands coming in stoned, shall we say, from office parties, thousands upon thousands of pet rocks were thrust into the distressed arms of already punchy housewives with such expressions as:

"Look what I found whining at the back door!"

"I thought you'd like it because it looks so much like your mother."

"Merry Christmas, honey; it's another piece of the rock" "It followed me all the way home from the museum."

"It'll even help you rock the kids to sleep."

All over the country pet rocks replaced puppies, kitties, ponies, hamsters, boa constrictors, piranhas and baby crocodiles on Christmas Eve. The more affluent families completely filled their spoiled little brats' socks with rocks.

Noting the word "pet," the SPCA immediately took all these new little Christmas gifts under its protective wing and issued a thought provoking warning: "Let he who is without sin cast the first rock. " It did save a lot of lives when the husbands reeled home late the night before Christmas.

But one can imagine the consternation among all the little school kiddies when, in January of this bicentennial year, their teachers asked them to name their favorite animal and write briefly why. Those too young to write were asked to draw a picture of the animal instead.

Confusion had to reign among our younger set at that point. In the very heart of their formative stage they had just seen the rock replace everything that was fuzzy and furry, wiggly and squirmy. Next Christmas, they assumed, they would be expected to write: "Dear Santa:

If you no longer carry teddy bears could you please bring me a nice soft stuffed rock to sleep with?"

There was another worrisome thing about this youthful bicentennial voting. Wouldn't it be a lot easier for a kid to draw a rock than a hobbled pacer or an American Dall Sheep? Would the kids be like their old man and take the easy way out? It was scary.

One could almost see the older children writing: "I vote for the rock because most of them, unlike canaries and guinea pigs, are as old as our country, which is 200 this year. And before Plymouth Rock became a chicken it was the place where our Pilgrims landed."

You know what we mean. Kids believe anything is good if they see the old man doing it.

But God bless their little pea pickin' hearts, you know what they did! They just flat up and voted the horse the thing that should be America's Bicentennial Animal. Not the dog, mind you; not the goldfish nor the cat. The horse was the landslide winner. The horse even beat out the nation's symbol, the bald eagle.

The Humane Society of the United States sponsored the balloting, which involved 75,000 youngsters in far-flung schools and local Humane Society chapters. The horse got 20,289 votes - 943 more than the bald eagle whose likeness adorns the presidential seal and the nation's currency.

Many of the sketches looked like daddy's rocks, but check closer and you could spot manes and tails. The bright little rascals didn't pay any attention to old Benjamin Franklin's suggestion of 200 years ago, either. When he wasn't flying kites he was pushing the turkey for the national symbol. The kids stuffed the turkey down in eleventh place with only 1,433 votes.

Amazingly enough, and perhaps a very pertinent point for the various state racing commissions to consider, the dogs didn't even wind up among the top fifteen in the vote tabulation.

Behind the horse and the bald eagle, in order, were the white tailed deer, the buffalo, grizzly bears, whales, wolves, cattle, coyotes, beavers, wild turkeys, passenger pigeons, mules, rabbits and salmon. The lineup strongly indicates that the youthful voters were doing their own thinking, and many of their letters backed it up.

"I think the eagle should win because he is for our freedom," explained 9-year-old Randy Rubin of Staten Island, N.Y. "The eagle wanted America to be strong, and I hope we are."

Todd Dyleski, 10, of Atlanta, Ga., wanted the buffalo to win. Reason? "Since it is almost extinct and before it is extinct [[sic) it should be the national animal because it didn't get much credit for all it did."

Surrae Holloway, 11, of Caropolis, Pa., was one of the thousands who voted for the winner. She explained one reason why. "When they had horses," she wrote, "they didn't have to get gas or change their tires."

The whole episode serves to remind that the new USTA bicentennial coloring book should be a tremendous promotional implement for every track in the country this year. Designed originally by the Hall of Fame of the Trotter in Goshen, N.Y., the beautifully done booklet could bring out every crayon in America while the tiny artists learn at the same time the prominence of the standardbred throughout our country's history.

So anyway the youthful population has spoken loudly in a time of crisis and competition. Proof positive, obviously, that horses are still on the right track. It's a signal straight out of the Old North Church and this sport would be wise to pay close attention to it. The captive audience is still there to be had.

Down through these hectic last several years daddy may have developed rocks in his head, but the upcoming generations once again have horses in theirs.

When the mule finishes in thirteenth position right behind the passenger pigeon you've got to know there's some kind of special magic about four legs, a mane and a tail.

[Uncledave54]

FWIW, somebody will get the MI Hall of Fame horseman/driver.
The B on his chest [[along with his colors) a giveaway.

Chris Boring?

[rickbak]

Easy. The Four Tops.

Next question [[sugar pie, honey bunch).

[wilderness]

uncledave,
Aye to Norman Chris Boring.

Flora, Former P.R. Head At USTA, Dead At 70
Earl Flora, public relations director for the U.S. Trotting Association from 1960 to 1972, died September 27, 1989 at Riverside Hospital, Columbus, Ohio, after a lengthy illness. He was 70.
Mr. Flora was a columnist and baseball writer for The Columbus Dispatch prior to accepting a position with the USTA, and also had been sports director for WBNS-TV in Columbus. For many years, he authored the "Florascope" column which appeared monthly in Hoof Beats.
During the 1940s, Mr. Flora handled publicity for the American Association of minor league baseball and was public relations and promotions director for the Chicago White Sox. After leaving the USTA, he became publicity director for Wolverine Raceway in Detroit, but returned to Columbus in the late 1970s to become vice president of the city's Convention and Visitors Bureau, a post he held until his retirement.
Mr. Flora also served as president of the Harness Publicists Association and in 1977, received that organization's Golden Pen Award, symbolic of outstanding contributions to the sport of harness racing.