BRADY, Texas -- Thousands of people Friday crowded into this tiny town that calls itself the heart of Texas to place a legal bet on the first pari-mutuel horse race in Texas in 52 years.
'It's tremendous. There's so much excitement,' Brady Mayor Bud Gober Jr. said Friday, laughing heartily.
The Class 2 G. Rollie White Downs in Brady becomes the first track since Texans said yes to pari-mutuel gambling in 1987 to open, with several other tracks due to open in the next few months.
'This track is kind of a guinea pig for the rest of the industry,' track marketing director John Hendley said. 'How well we do now will do a lot to let them know how well they will do.'
Tickets have been sold out for months to the 3,000-seat grandstands, and 'standing room' space for 1,500 filled up quickly.
Texans from throughout the state -- which prior to Friday made up a large segment of the crowds at pari-mutuel tracks in neighboring Louisiana, Arkansas, New Mexico and Oklahoma -- reserved nearly every motel room in a 50-mile radius on this sparsely populated plateau in West-Central Texas.
Before the day's racing began, country singer Downett Faucett of Abilene sang the national anthem, then a sea of white cowboy hats came off and were waved in the air amid loud cheers when the track announcer said betting windows were open.
Rain started pouring down just before the start of the first race, but it abated somewhat by the third race.
The first race was won by He A Vik, owned by Sonny Wooley of Belton, Texas, who picked up the $1,400 purse. The crowd bet $20,557 on the first race, and winning $2 tickets paid $8.80.
'It's the greatest feeling I ever had,' Wooley said. 'Some people want to win the Riudoso (Downs) in New Mexico. I wanted to win this one.'
The first day's race card featured 13 races, with the top purse a $5,000 Heart of Texas Stakes, although larger purses were planned for future months.
Track officials estimated the first weekend's crowds would wager more than $450,000.
At the track, the paint was still wet in lots of places, and the new clubhouse was only a metal skeleton when the gates opened. A tent served as the clubhouse.
Brady, population 6,000, was hit hard by the ailing Texas economy in recent years, and is betting on the surveys showing pari-mutuel racing will mean a $4 million annual boost to the economy. Ranching became the mainstay, with hunting a seasonal draw.
At B's Beer Barn on the main street, they were advertising deer corn and tip sheets.
Brady is no stranger to horse racing, with a 60-year history to draw upon.
The last pari-mutuel race was in 1935, but horse races have been an attraction since the city opened a track in 1929.
A tornado felled the first track, but wealthy Texas rancher G. Rollie White made up for it by donating 86 acres for a new track and buying for the city the old Arlington Downs grandstands, which had been the site near Dallas of the last legal pari-mutuel races in 1937.
'It was the times. People felt it might be bad, gambling,' said Gober, 72, an avid race fan who remembers the days of legal betting in Texas.
'I don't think we would have pari-mutuel today if we hadn't had the oil crunch,' Gober said, referring to the oil and gas industry woes that crippled the state's economy in recent years.
The Baptist church, historically opposed to any form of gambling, did not put up much of a fight when Brady bid to become the first to offer pari-mutuel racing, Gober said.
'There was very little (dissent). There was no hell and brimstone, although, of course, they don't condone it,' Gober said. 'But then, that's what makes a horse race -- a difference of opinion.'
