(Note: This is the first of two parts. Part two will run in next weekend’s Recorder.)

John Lacey raised his coffee mug for a refill. It was June and he was up for his Deerfield reunion, but I had balked at paying $124 for a lobster so we met for breakfast at the Holyoke Cracker Barrel.

“Rug Howard’s a steeplechase steward at Saratoga,” he said.

“Rug is? Can you get me his contact info?”

We had barely known each other at DA, but Rug answered my text and invited me to watch the A.P. Smithwick Memorial with him on July 17.

“Meet me at the winner’s circle at 10 a.m. and we will walk the steeplechase course, go to the jockeys’ meeting, be in the paddock before the race, visit the Steward’s stand and best yet, we have a reservation at the Reading Room (Jacket and tie).”

Traffic was light through Wilmington and Bennington onto Route 29, and I parked in my usual spot next to the Oklahoma training track.

Upstate New York was in a tropical heatwave and sweat seeped through my shirt into the seersucker sport coat I only wear when so required by pomp and circumstance. Lawn signs advertised vitamin injections for hangovers, and petunias had been flattened by overnight downpours.

What’s worse, the rain caused the day’s four turf races to be moved onto the main track, and the A.P. Smithwick was postponed until July 21. Rug called to tell me, but I was already in Cambridge and we decided to meet twice.

I was reading the Albany Times-Union when a gent my age dressed in a tweed sport coat briskly walked to the finish line looking left and right and I yelled, “Rug!”

We exchanged jaunty greetings and sat in the Clubhouse Porch and I asked him about the two pins on his lapel, one green with jockey silks and the other gold with a blue banner. “This one gets me in, and this one indicates I’m a Level 1 Steward,” he said.

Reese Evans Howard, Jr. was born in Detroit and nicknamed ‘Rug’ by his grandfather when he was an infant after he ran his hand over his inordinately bushy head. His great grandfather Russell A. Alger was a decorated Civil War officer, and among other positions was the governor of Michigan and Secretary of War under William McKinley. (The title was changed to Secretary of Defense during the Truman administration).

While he was in grammar school Rug’s father bought a small horse farm in Far Hills, N.J., which is the home of the U.S. Equestrian team. “It’s not a hobby. I was born into the game and came by it pretty naturally. I was too big to be a jockey so I became a steeplechase rider. Jumping over fences was the most fun I ever had in my life.”

The Deerfield experience wasn’t so much something that Rug relished. He wanted to stay home, ride horses and study at a local prep school like St. George’s or Millbrook. Alas, he said, “My father, brother, and three first cousins all went to Deerfield. I was going to Deerfield.”

He subscribed to the New York Daily News to read the racing charts, and for a required sport he convinced headmaster David Pynchon to let him ride and practice show jumping at Stoneleigh Burnham. During his senior year he raced and won a steeplechase event in Philadelphia and proudly returned with the trophy.

“My father wanted me to go to either Yale or the University of Virginia and play on the polo team,” said Rug, who had other ideas.

“I wrote to Yale and Virginia and told them I wasn’t coming. I went to Rutgers so I could ride and be close to the track. People joked that I went to Belmont Park University. I only went to class when I was injured.”

Those injuries haunt him today. “There’s nothing left of my left shoulder and I’m doing physical therapy for my lower spine.”

When Rug was in his 20s his days were a whirlwind of jumping fences and driving to the next race. Eventually he tired of the gypsy life and got married, raised a family and worked in the real estate appraisal industry. 

His last competitive race was aboard Devil’s Brolly at Glenwood Park in Middleburg, Va. “He was a mean horse that’d kill you as soon as look at you. He’d fallen with me a lot. He broke down after a half-mile and we walked off.”

After he retired in 2013, Rug enrolled in the Racing Officials Accreditation Program at the University of Arizona and passed all five sections of the exam. “They don’t take anyone. You have to show referral letters,” he said. “I decided to give back to the sport I love.”

As a senior steward for the National Steeplechase Association, Rug is at steeplechase races up and down the coast and during winter he’s a state steward at Tampa Bay Downs.

Winning Once at Saratoga

Rug used the time we would’ve spent inspecting the course to introduce me to his racing friends who work behind the scenes.

They included soft spoken steward Victor Escobar, starter Hector Soler who could play middle linebacker for the New York Giants, and Dr. Jennifer Durenberger who is the Director of Equine Safety and Welfare for the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA).

Dr. Durenberger grew up in Minnesota and went to Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine. Unlike many who are in the horse business, Dr. Durenberger wasn’t born into the sport.

“How’d you get into it?” I asked.

She smiled and said, “Wide World of Sports and indulgent parents who sent me to horse camp. Every week Wide World of Sports had a feature race from somewhere, and every week I watched.” 

We were in the paddock near the black marble statue of Sea Hero, one of just three horses in 80 years to win the Kentucky Derby and Travers Stakes. Owners and their friends stood near the saddling stalls, all gazing and hoping they’d be in the winner’s circle.

“Saratoga to me, it’s paradise, the best racing in the world,” said Rug. “Every owner, trainer and jockey wants to win at least once at Saratoga.”

I mentioned that the No.7 horse, a 2-year-old named Bellacose, looked small. “Well remember they’re babies,” said Rug. “She’s got a lot of filling out to do and she’s a filly.”

The paddock judge shouted to trainer Melanie Giddings, “All right Mellie, let’s bring the 8 on this turn, OK?” and as soon as she nodded he yelled “Riders up!”

I followed Rug past nattily dressed patrons drinking champagne and perusing programs to a spacious patio deck over the finish line. This was the stewards stand, a little patch of heaven where Braulio Baeza Jr., Dr. Ted Hill and the aforementioned Victor Escobar would look for racing infractions. All inquiries and jockey objections would be decided by majority rule.

Dr. Hill graduated in 1974 from PennVet at the University of Pennsylvania and has lectured on diverse topics like Headshaking Syndrome in Horses.

The press box was directly next to us and I said, “Some great writers typed their stories over there.”

Dr. Hill smiled and nodded. “Damon Runyon,” he said, referring to the writer and gambler whose short stories inspired Guys and Dolls.

Dr. Hill and Baeza Jr. used binoculars and Escobar watched from an adjoining video room. Track announcer Frank Miramonte called the race from a small cubicle above us, and a cameraman had opened a trap door and was filming the race below us.

Rug proved prescient when Bellacose won by 10 lengths and I kicked myself for not betting the 6-1 longshot. Neither he nor his family could bet. “It would look odd for my wife to be betting,” he said.

The stewards ruled that the race had been fairly contested. At this writing they’d dropped only one horse from first place, a 25-1 longshot named Barnstorming for interfering down the stretch.

Rug tapped the window that separated us from the bettors. “This is bulletproof glass,” he said.

“Really?” I exclaimed.

“No!” he laughed.

Dining in The Reading Room

Rug waited outside an inconspicuous white house behind the paddock while I hurriedly put on my tie. “It’s a wonderful old building where you’ll see every well known horseman,” he said.

Rug’s grandfather, Fred Alger, won the 1935 Santa Anita Derby with Azucar — “means ‘sugar’ in Spanish,” he said. 

He paused and pointed at one of the many framed caricatures on the wall that had been drawn by famed cartoonist Pierre “PEB” Bellocq. “My father,” he said. “He was a bigwig here. He liked his clubs and made sure they were all up to snuff.”

We were seated on the porch and our server said we could take off our sport coats. The menu offerings included lobster roll with avocado, yellowfin tuna with cucumbers and smoked salmon with cherry potatoes, but I followed Rug’s lead and chose the roast beef sandwich with blue cheese.

I was chomping away on my sandwich with both hands when I noticed that Rug was using a knife and fork. Slowly I returned the unused portion to the plate and picked up the utensils.

I wasn’t in Cracker Barrel any more.

Chip Ainsworth is an award-winning columnist who has penned his observations about sports for decades in the Pioneer Valley. He can be reached at chipjet715@icloud.com