Photos by Susan Blackburn Photography
Backstretch Employee Service Team of New York, or B.E.S.T., celebrates its 30th anniversary this year as it seeks to provide superlative care and resources for the valued workers that make the horse industry tick.
Paul Ruchames, a licensed clinical social worker in his ninth year as executive director of B.E.S.T., knows the value of what its services provide. He distinctly recalls one man, a hot walker, who was, by all accounts, “near death.”
“Many people overcame drug and alcohol abuse,” Ruchames said, “or are overcoming it. We had one man, in his 60s, who was discovered. He had been an alcoholic for a long time. He was laid out, unconscious. It was the middle of winter. We took him to the hospital and got him into
our program.”
At the time, this man had about three months to live.
“It was through the program,” Ruchames said, “not only the services we were able to give him, but the hope the we gave him. We cared and wouldn’t let him fall through the cracks. He had no clout in the world. He’s maintained his sobriety and is doing well. His goal is to get back to Mexico where he’s from with the money he can save.”
There are countless stories of this nature. For the backstretch workers, life is isolated and often lonely. Self-medicating is often the only release and escape for many of these men and women.
“Most workers are living apart from their families and country of origin,” Ruchames said. “It’s a selfless life, working so they can send money back home. It’s lonely for a lot of people. Alcohol and drugs call out to you when you feel that way, to anesthetize feelings. [The workers] tend not to mix outside the gates of the tracks. There’s little sense of identity, sort of a like a man with no country, not a part of America, just the racetrack is their culture.”
And it is the racetrack culture that has given its full endorsement and support for the backstretch workers. That state-wide partnership with the New York Thoroughbred Horseman’s Association and the New York Racing Association and its tracks—Aqueduct, Belmont Park, and Saratoga Race Course—have allowed the program to prosper, in fact NYRA and NYTHA are B.E.S.T.’s largest donors.
Much of the other money B.E.S.T. raises comes from individual donors, and one way to support B.E.S.T. is the Third Race Call at Saratoga. For a donation of $100 per person, people can join Larry Collmus, the voice of the Triple Crown and NYRA, and watch him call the third race every day of the meet (excluding opening day and Travers Day).
“I thought it was a great idea,” Collmus said. “Obviously B.E.S.T. is an organization that does wonders for people on the backstretch. [The backstretch workers] put on the show. Anything we can do to help is a great thing. I had, of course, known about this before I ever started working for NYRA. It was an obvious yes. It’s been a lot of fun. I get a chance to meet people I would not necessarily meet before. They visit me in the booth, at the same time for a fantastic cause. It’s a cool little thing that hopefully will continue to grow.”
These days Collmus uses an iPad to scribble in the silks of the horses so he can remember who’s who out on the track. An Apple Pencil is all he needs to color code a given race. Letting people see his process illustrates the immense work that goes into preparing for a single race.
“Most people want to know how I remember all the horses in the race,” Collmus said. “I show them what goes into the process and my own way of doing it. I like to show off the fact that I call a race off an iPad, draw digitally the silks of horses to get that preparation in, learn those races when they come on the track in advance. They enjoy seeing that.
“As I explain to them, the remembering is one thing, the other thing is the forgetting. There are 10 races a day. You don’t want to call horses that already ran, dump that memory bank. That group is done, clean the slate.”
Thirty years is a long time, but with recently added programs such as English as a Second Language, citizenship school, and myriad other classes, B.E.S.T. promises to keep striding well into the future.
“I see us getting more into prevention as well as treatment,” Ruchames said. “They’re exposed to chronic pain, those repetitive movements, day after day year after year. On the drug-and-alcohol-treatment side, there are medically assisted treatments—MATs—that help deal with craving and block the ability to get high from opiates and alcohol. They’re expensive and hard to access, but we’re working on integrating it.”
To donate to B.E.S.T. visit backstretch.org.
