It has been 25 years since the nation watched civil rights protesters, led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., being beaten by police with billy clubs, attacked by police dogs and sprayed with fire hoses as they marched through the streets of Birmingham, Ala.
Today, Birmingham, hub of a metropolitan area of 916,000 residents and the nation's 43rd largest market, is racially integrated in ways even King could not have dreamed. But the events of 1963 left the city with a reputation that still festers in the nation's consciousness. Birmingham remains a city with an inferiority complex, in desperate need of a pat on the back.
The latest attempt to garner such acceptance sits vacant now, gathering dust, debt and ridicule.
The Birmingham Turf Club, opened in March of 1987, was supposed to be the calling card of a progressive New Birmingham. Even Atlanta didn't have a horse track, after all. And neither does Birmingham now. The track has been bankrupt and dormant since its first meet ended on Halloween 1987.
There is an irony to the Turf Club story, which hearkens back to King's marches.
In 1985, one year after local politicians pushed a horse racing bill through the state legislature, the Birmingham Racing Commission had to decide on one of the three applicants for the new track's only operating license. A group known as Birmingham Downs seemed sure to win. Its presentations were solid, its ambitions were modest, and, above all, its pockets were deep. But the group could not meet one Commission requirement: 30% minority ownership.
A group known as Greater Birmingham Sports Associates could, however. Though poorly financed, GBSA, which later became the Turf Club, won the license because it promised to meet the minority ownership quota.
"We knew they were weak financially," said Mayor Richard Arrington, who is black and who also chairs the Racing Commission. "But minority ownership was important to us. I don't regret how we handled it."
The failure of Alabama's first horse track is inexorably linked to that decision.
In 1985, even before plans were complete, the track was nearly stillborn. A deadline was fast approaching for the group to buy the 330 acres in northeast Birmingham where the track was to be located. But sales of Turf Club stock had been sluggish and the shallowness of the track's financial backing was already becoming apparent. Without additional cash, GBSA could not buy the land. Without the land, the Racing Commission would revoke the club's license.
In August, Judy Thompson, an executive in Thompson Tractor Co., came to the rescue.
Thompson formed Ruffner Land Co. and bought the land. She also spent $3.5 million on the remaining Turf Club stock. Soon after, Thompson was named chairwoman, CEO and unofficial savior of the Turf Club.
"Judy's name lent a lot of credibility, and saved them from going under," Arrington said. "If she hadn't come along, I don't like their chances."
But the price of survival was the surrender of control to Thompson, a newcomer to the horse racing business.
"Thompson knew nothing about racing, and she did a terrible job of running the track," said Bill Walsh, leader of the Birmingham Horseman's Association.
Thompson, who has not spoken to the press for over a year, could not be reached for comment.
"We tried to deal with Judy on a professional basis," Racing Commission executive secretary Larry Eliason said. "But she was very uncooperative in everything that happened. It was always, 'Give me, give me, and to hell with you.' And quite naturally, we got tired of that."
Thompson clashed with the governing body from the start, primarily over two provisions of the Turf Club's license.
The track was required to build a training facility adjacent to the main track. It was believed such a facility would ease daily wear and tear on the main track, avert needless accidents and, more important in local leaders' minds, give the city a leg up on Atlanta - which was giving serious consideration to horse racing - as a training center.
But late in 1985, Thompson announced the Turf Club would not built the training track.
"I'm not going to let anyone take my condos away," she said at the time, citing a desire to build condominiums on the adjacent property.
Instead, she announced, the club would spend $1 million building Longchamps, a ritzy restaurant inside the grandstand.
The second provision was to build a 1,500-stall barn. In '86, Thompson said the club could afford to build only 1,200 stalls.
"She kept wanting more and more, and we went along with most of it," Arrington said.
By the time the Turf Club opened on March 3, 1987, $48 million had been spent on a sparkling facility that protruded from the pine woods of northeast Birmingham. The centerpiece, a seven-story glass and steel grandstand with seating for 20,000 and what seemed like more restaurants than betting windows, looked more like a pristine country club than a sweaty racetrack. A $2.5 million Sony JumboTron closed-circuit system gave viewers at every venue instant replays of the previous race.
"I remember the first time we saw it complete," said Donna Kaelin, who, along with her husband, Clyde, were the first horse trainers on the grounds. "It was the most beautiful track we'd ever seen. The grandstand was so impressive. The track was so smooth."
As impressive as the track, the grandstand and the ancillary facilities were, the club's resources were stretched thin.
"It was a case of us opening on Tuesday and needing to be a roaring success by Saturday, or we were in trouble," said former Turf Club marketing director Chick Lang Jr.
Track officials pinned their hopes on a now-infamous study of the Birmingham marketplace commissioned by the Birmingham Racing Commission and carried out by Bill Killingsworth, a racing consultant. Killingsworth was paid $2 million even before the Turf Club opened for his research, which projected a $1.2 million average daily betting handle. Killingsworth could not be reached for comment.
As a result of his study, the track opened offering daily purses of $95,000 - among the highest in racing - and with more than 800 people on the payroll. By year's end, with the average handle barely above $400,000, purses were sliced to $40,000 daily and only essential personnel remained on the payroll. Thompson's restaurant closed only a few weeks into the meet, unable to attract more than a few patrons willing to cough up $100 per couple for dinner. Losses for the year totaled $16 million.
The staff Thompson hired was a veteran, competent organization. Austin Brown, the track president, was well respected, having held key management positions at Baltimore's Pimlico Race Course. But Thompson was unwilling to simply sit back and let them do their jobs.
"Austin was a maestro with someone telling him how the music should sound," Lang said. "It was sad, really. The place was basically run by committee, and that's no way to run a racetrack."
It was obvious to outsiders who was calling the shots.
"The people who did know racing were given little leeway, especially Austin Brown," Walsh said. "Look how high they started the purses. We all knew they couldn't keep that up, and they didn't."
Thompson was the boss, but Killingsworth exerted an enormous amount of influence on the tractor heiress. The two made no secret of their intimate personal relationship. Toward the end of the meet, they moved to California together.
"Bill was a very good consultant," Lang said. "He had a proven track record. But that kind of experience doesn't give you the knowledge to run a racetrack. There's a little more to running a racetrack than making sure everyone's steak is cooked right."
Everyone could see the purses seemed high for such a small area. But Killingsworth was counting on the track's ability to draw bettors from throughout the region, especially from Atlanta, two hours away.
"You always question any kind of numbers like this," said Merritt Pizitz, the club's vice president. "But at some point, you have to believe in the people you've hired and the work they've done."
Adding insult to injurious losses, the Turf Club's marketing strategy compromised the track's ability to draw almost from the beginning.
"They acted like they were ashamed of what their product was: legalized gambling," remarked Art Clarkson, owner of the Birmingham Barons minor league baseball club. "They weren't saying, 'Come bet.' They were saying, 'Come look at the pretty horses and have a nice dinner.' They were advertising it as a good, wholesome place to bring the family."
It was obvious the club was trying to attract an upscale clientel, and that alienated many average citizens, Arrington said.
"There was the impression that ordinary people - especially blacks - wouldn't fit in," Arrington said.
"Judy never understood that it's the $2 bettor who keeps you open," Lang said. "If you don't cater to that patron, you don't last."
The Turf Club spent $1 million on its initial marketing push. But it was rendered less than useless when track officials began switching post times and types of betting in a desperate attempt to bolster lagging attendance and handle.
"It got to be a joke," Lang said. "How were we supposed to build any kind of loyalty when we keep changing everything? We'd have people showing up at the wrong time, which had been the right time a few days before. Do you think those people came back?"
"I think there are two lessons to be learned from the Turf Club failure," said Eliason. "Make sure your projections are realistic, even conservative. And make sure you have the financial staying power to sustain five years of tough losses."
Arrington said, "It's difficult to say what might have happened with the other [ownership] group. Certainly, they could afford to lose money for a year or two. Clearly, the Turf Club couldn't, and that's what killed them."
Turf Club officials remain matter-of-fact about their losses.
"Sure, there are some things we would do differently if we had it to do all over again," said Pizitz. "Hindsight is 20/20. We made mistakes."
Birmingham stood to realized an estimated $200 million annual economic boon from the track, in addition to the obvious image boost. Instead, the city is out $14 million for road construction.
The Turf Club was on the block even before it closed last year. In yet another concession to necessity, the state legislature repealed the section of the state law prohibiting the track from being owned by out-of-state interests. But there were no takers.
Last August, the track reached an agreement with Alabama dog track owners Paul Bryant Jr. and Milton McGreggor to conduct dog racing on the grounds. But the deal fell through at the last minute, apparently quashed by AmSouth Bank, the track's chief creditor.
After that latch ditch effort failed, the Turf Club moved to protect itself under Chapter 11. Moments after the track filed bankruptcy, the Birmingham Racing Commission revoked its operating license.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Clifford Fulford will convene a hearing before Christmas to determine the control of the license and to consider the Turf Club's reorganization plan.
The track won a major victory last month when Fulford determined its value at $20 million, much to the chagrin of AmSouth, which holds $50 million in Turf Club loans.
The reorganization plan hinges on an agreement with Delaware North Cos. to conduct at least 150 racing dates in each of the next three years, starting by April 1, 1989.
When and if racing resumes, Clyde and Donna Kaelin plan to be there.
"We were the first ones on the grounds, we've been one of the few to stick it out, and we plan to be there," Donna Kaelin said. "We're gambling that this place will make it."
But the biggest gambler, a city that has been burned before, remains indifferent to the track's comeback.
"It's all up to the courts, but I can't say I have a good feeling about the whole thing," Arrington said. "If you're a citizen of Birmingham, you take your city's failures personally. It shakes our confidence. It wasn't supposed to be like this."
Copyright 1988 by Keith Dunnavant