Joan Lawrence has always loved working with horses, but she never thought of making a career in horse racing.
After more than 40 years of working on the backstretch and administration offices that include the New York Racing Association, Thoroughbred Racing Communications and the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, Lawrence is spending part of her retirement by going back to her roots: the backstretch.
Since July 11, Lawrence has been assisting James Ryerson in maintaining his stable by walking and grooming horses, as well as raking around the shed row and walking area, though, she does have a different perspective on the experience.
“I’ve known Jimmy Ryerson for several years,” she said. “We are old friends and socialize here and there, but he needed help. I haven’t walked horses in years. So, it was eye-opening and very humbling to say the least. It has given me a renewed appreciation to what he does here. The team has been terrific.”
The Ryerson team has already won two races within the first five days into the Saratoga meet: Mommie’s Jewel and Dancing Kiki. While there may be a little luck involving those wins, Lawrence sees the team functioning more like an orchestra to help the horses perform well.
“It’s such a beautiful thing that Jim does,” she said. “He’s the conductor and everyone else is the orchestra. They all work and pull together into a crescendo. Then all of a sudden, there is the horse.” “There isn’t a lot of staff here. The grooms help each other. They have been great with me. I can feel the positivity around here. We are feeling good right now and we hope everything continues to go well,” she said.
Lawrence’s experience in horse racing is slightly atypical than others who have worked around the track. Living in Massapequa in 1975, Lawrence and her mother watched the horse racing replay show featuring Frank Wright and Charlsie Cantey.
Around the same time, her mother also played on bowling team in Huntington that featured trainer John Sheringham, who was part of a core New York horsemen’s group that included Hall of Famers Bill Boland and H. Allen Jerkens. That piqued Lawrence’s interest of going to the backstretch and working with horses for Sheringham on the weekends while attending Farmingdale State.
“My family had nothing to do with horse racing, but I have always liked the horses,” she said. “I would drive to his house. He put me in his tiny red car. When I got there, I thought I was in heaven. I never knew horses had the right-of-way. When we were done, he put me back in the car and took me back. I couldn’t get enough of it after a while.”
For the next five years, Lawrence worked for trainers that included Leonard Imperio, P.G. Johnson and John Hertler, as well as learning how to break yearlings, ride horses, and handle stallions for her father-in-law John C. Lawrence, who owned one of the first stallion farms in Long Island.
The non-stop schedule and breaking her right shoulder impacted Lawrence. Instead of continuing with college and working on the backstretch, she became interested on the front side of racing.
“One day, I realized that college wasn’t for me,” Lawrence said. “I also wasn’t cut out to do this seven days a week, as much as I wanted to be trainer. So, I started to get familiar with people on the front side.”
One of her first jobs working for NYRA was horseman relations and customer service with eventual long-time friend Mary Hauswald, then she moved into marketing and communications. That communications position led her into a niche in horse racing for nearly 27 years.
Lawrence worked for TRC for about seven years before the NTRA merger. During her tenure, with mentoring from Bob Curran, Lawrence tackled a variety of jobs that included providing soundbites from a bulky over-the-shoulder SONY recorder for sports radio networks, conducting weekly polls, producing media packages, and coordinating teleconferences.
Through her job at TRC and NTRA, Lawrence covered every major racing event from Triple Crown to the Breeders’ Cup with her first assignment being Easy Goer in 1989.
Using her skills of thinking ahead, Lawrence also played an integral part of coordinating information and the teleconferences at the New Bolton Center for Dr. Dean Richardso, who was the equine surgeon for Barbaro, and she coordinated media events at Parx Racing where Smarty Jones was training during his Triple Crown bid in 2004.
“Whenever there was an opportunity, I jumped on it,” she said. “It was quite a time, especially when not everyone had the internet yet. I loved being part of that service. The writers appreciated it. I always thought ahead of what they needed. That’s how we operated.”
With about three years before retirement from the NTRA in 2015, Lawrence decided to leave the commute from Long Island to Manhattan and move to Ballston Spa. While she enjoyed working downstate, Lawrence felt she had more of a connection to Saratoga County, especially with the horses.
“I thought I would get more involved in the horses,” she said. “It’s the love of horses and the quality of life and lifestyle. I have always loved coming up here. I’ve always been an upstater. This is more me. I love Long Island and growing up there, but I was never really a beach person. I am more into the mountains. When I am here, I always identify with the area more than the beach.”
Outside of racing, Lawrence spends time doing outdoor activities that includes hiking and cross-country skiing, as well as spending time with other friends retired from racing.
It has been over 45 years since Lawrence and her mother watched horse racing replays on television. Over that time, Lawrence’s mother was impressed with her journey around horse racing.
“My mother thought I was a rock star,” she said “If she was here today, she would have been proud. I ended up having a nice career. I learned and everybody was good to me, but I worked hard around a lot of good people. It has been incredible journey when I think about it.”
