Multnomah
Greyhound Park
944 NE 223rd Ave.,
Wood Village 667-7700
Post time
is 7:30 pm for all racing nights. Races are held Tuesdays-Saturdays,
April-October. Additional Monday races are held Memorial Day
through Labor Day.
Admission is free.
According to People
for Animal Rights, as many as 20,000 dogs die each year
in the greyhound racing industry.
I find a place at the fence separating the milling crowd from
the track just in time for the beginning of the 67th racing
season at Multnomah Greyhound Park.
A warm spring day has turned cool and damp in purplish
twilight. Roughly 20 yards away, nine dogs squeal, seemingly
invisible inside their metal starting boxes. The sound is
alarmingly intimate, as if coming from a pet waiting at
the back door to come inside.
The grass of the infield dreams of being Fenway Park green,
and the track is raked almost smooth by a Budweiser-sponsored
tractor. Most of the 3,873 racing fans who will attend opening
night are already here. They are young and old, male and
female. The crowd is also more racially varied than at any
Portland event I've attended. Some wear wool V-neck sweaters,
others lounge on outdoor benches in baseball caps and sweats.
They are spread among the three floors of the enclosed stands--a
Lego-solid, rectangular structure the size of a large airplane
hangar. TVs buzz, tuned to simulcast races and baseball
games. A wide, outdoor concrete patio washes up to the edge
of the fence.
A few fans have their noses stuck in programs, figuring
the dogs. A line of spectators at the fence clutch sloshing
Buds. They are riveted by Rusty, a cartoonishly large motorized
white bone making its approach around the last turn.
Rusty is affixed to what looks like a child-sized motorcycle
that runs along the outer rim of the infield. A long pole
dangles the bone over the heart of the track. As Rusty makes
the final turn, nine doors to nine tiny boxes spring open.
A cluster of female greyhounds, ranging in weight from 58
to 74 pounds, surge toward the bone--it remains ever ahead.
The faint puff, puff, puff of tough-skinned paws pounding
soft dirt reaches the edge of the crowd. Each dog wears
a muzzle and a numbered jersey or blanket tied around its
chest. A blurry throng of sinewy motion patters past, scrambles
around the first turn and separates in the distance of a
straight away.
At first blush the greyhounds seem unnaturally skinny.
The pups here have clearly never seen whatever it was Lassie
and Benji got to grub on. By the third race, however, I
stop measuring these dogs against other animals--they've
become something else entirely. Their physicality resembles
that of house dogs about as much as professional basketball
players resemble the hoop players in a pick-up game at the
neighborhood park.
Dear Lover is the first to make the final turn of the first
race. She leans hard to her left, legs cycling frantically
to catch earth. Sharp ribs are visible beneath her red No.7
jersey. Straightening suddenly, Dear Lover scoots along
the final stretch, holding off TWM Leah and Kid's Inga to
win; she was a 2-to-1 favorite. She's run 550 yards in 30.91
seconds.
The sound system blares the whistling tune "Colonel Bogey
March" from The Bridge on the River Kwai, as it will
between every race. Jason Erb whistles along. Erb, 19, just
finished his freshman year at the University of Portland.
He and four buddies are kicking off summer vacation in style--at
the track. Erb is wearing pulled-up argyle socks and an
unbuttoned brown Hawaiian shirt. He's got a plastic visor
that reads, "100% Irish." Below that, the visor proclaims,
"Contains No Artificial Ingredients." He has cropped red
hair and light wisps of fur on his cheeks. A lone pencil
has been wedged between the visor and his skull. The pencil
stands tall, like a long finger admonishing God. This, quite
clearly, is Erb's lucky outfit. "I like to look at the dogs,
compare times, look at the names," he says, explaining his
betting system. "Mostly though, you just get a feeling."
His buddy chimes in: "A gut instinct."
Erb is the leader of this pack; only two of the others
have been to greyhound races before. Erb's parents took
him to his first race when he was 10, and he's been attending
MGP races regularly ever since. As a boy he owned an Italian
greyhound named Tina.
When it comes to MGP's treatment of the animals, "It's
not something I really think of," Erb says. Remembering
his own greyhound, he says, "They love to run. Sometimes
[Tina] would go in the back yard and just run in circles
by herself." Erb eventually sold Tina to another family,
one that had more time and space to accommodate the dog's
needs.
He doesn't come to the track to get rich--getting rich
off greyhounds is, by all accounts, a long shot at best.
Rather, he finds the races entertaining, a nice diversion.
He usually bets $3 per race, a dollar above the minimum
wager. The most he's ever won on a single race is $60, and
he's never finished the night much more than $10 ahead.
When I see Erb again after the fifth race, he's pleased
to be even. "If you figure dinner and a movie is easily
$20, this is a pretty good deal," he says.
Erb's assessment is shared by much of the crowd. Greyhound
races can be an inexpensive way to amble through the summer
and into fall. If anyone in attendance is concerned about
the treatment of the dogs, or about the fact that People
for Animal Rights protest the racing season, they don't
let on.
Dick Beyerle, 92, is sitting next to his walker at the
top of the indoor concourse stands. His wife, Hazel, 77,
sits a seat away. The Beyerles have been coming to MGP nearly
every night of the season since they retired in 1972. "I
don't care about the money," Dick Beyerle says. "I usually
come out a little bit ahead, but I wouldn't advise anyone
to try to make money at the dog races." Beyerle speaks in
a broken whisper; he's dapper in a gray wool porkpie hat,
brown cardigan and matching slacks. Hazel has had her hair
done. A shiny gold brooch is pierced jauntily through the
lapel of her navy blue jacket.
The Beyerles say they like the daily rituals that following
the greyhounds engender: a couple of hours in the afternoon
for handicapping the races and two or three more at the
track at night.
As Dick points out, "There's not a lot for a guy to do
at 92."
Activity swirls around the Beyerles. Fans gather around
concession stands gulping beer and Dollar Dogs--$1 hot dogs
not much bigger than a tightly rolled bill. After each 30-second
burst of a race, a few in the crowd pump their fists and
squeal with victory. Most, however, let their square, white
betting tickets flutter from splayed fingers to the stone
floor below.
Opening night enthusiasm belies the fact that attendance
at MGP is down considerably for a third straight year. Condemnation
from animal-rights activists and competition from casinos
and video-poker have conspired to render the industry a
dying breed.
But as long as there are fans like Rock and Barbara Scott,
there will be lean dogs running around ovals. The Scotts,
a well-groomed black married couple in their 40s, went to
their first race soon after moving to Portland from New
Orleans, La. in 1973. "You basically win by coming out often,"
says Rock, lean with an easy smile and eager eyes. "You
get 10 core dogs, and you can get their characteristics
down if you pay attention."
Rock Scott is the first person I've met who has spoken
with optimism about the chances of making money off the
dogs. This must mean that many of the nearly 4,000 folks
who came to the park on opening night placed bets they didn't
really expect to win. I cannot think of another pursuit
at once as obviously inane and gloriously without presumption.
As the sound system whistles The Bridge on the River
Kwai yet again, I find myself whistling along and loving
my country.
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Willamette Week | originally
published May 12, 1999
|
