As I continue working on Foxes of Belair, I wanted to look at both Belair champions and the contextual history of their pedigrees and their people, but I also wanted to draw on our own context. One of the great joys of my life has been these thirty-plus years of watching horse racing and falling in love with its champions over the years. With that in mind, I wanted to introduce a regular feature I’m calling #FanFriday.

The goal will be to interview a fan each week and share some thoughts on their favorite horses and moments from their time as part of this sport. This week, I wanted to kick things off with a look at the wonderful people who engaged with me early on and led to this lifetime love of horse racing.

Starting Young

Sure, my journey started with the Black Stallion books, and, according to my third-grade teacher, I was already sketching horses before I had even watched my first race on television. Growing up in the Birmingham area offered limited opportunities to interact with horses so imagine how grand a day it was when my aunt Betty took me to the racetrack for the first time! It was August 12, 1989 and this twelve-year-old fan was doing so well at the wagering game that I had some grizzled old gamblers asking my aunt who I liked in the next race. That’s where I met Missy Be Good, the filly that caught my eye and started my love for chestnuts. I’m still looking for a photo of her to have.

Writing Away

The late 1980s lacked the accessibility of tools like Twitter and Facebook and search engines like Google, so, if you want to reach out to your favorites, you had to write a letter. I cannot remember how many I wrote, but, as I had decided I wanted to be a jockey, I started writing letters. To the National Museum of Racing. To Churchill Downs. To the Kentucky Derby Museum. To Pimlico. Most of the time, I got lovely letters back, some even handwritten. I wrote a letter to Chris Antley after he won the Kentucky Derby on Strike the Gold and got that autographed photo in return. I got that photo of Pat Day. Kentucky Derby win photos from 1980-1990. Programs from the Triple Crown races. I relished checking the mail every day and still do. Now, though, with Twitter and Facebook and more, I can reach out more easily, but I will never forget how special I felt opening the mailbox and finding envelopes from these cathedrals to the sport.

Thirty years later, I had the great fortune to take that teenage love of racing into the work I do now. I love every second of it. For all of the days when racing is hard, when negatives pile up and threaten to overwhelm the positives, I remember how I felt when Sunday Silence and Easy Goer dueled down the stretch in the 1989 Preakness, when American Pharoah finally was the one, and all of the winning moments in between, and I smile, thinking of how much younger me loved it all. I am grateful to every person who answered my letters and my tweets, who took the time to share their love of the sport with this fan and many others.

Now, each week, I hope to feature other fans and talk about those same moments that brought them to racing and then keep them in the sport. If you would like to be a part of #FanFriday, let me know! I’d love to showcase fans from across the county and the world if possible.