When Leni Tsottles and her girlfriends from the racetrack get together, they pretty much talk about one thing: Horses.
Not the price of gas or global warming, and not men.
[Well, sometimes men, but usually jockeys. Her favorite is the Peruvian Edgar Prado, who has saddled 6,000 winners.]
So the gathering in Towson this Saturday at Tsottles’ home for the 133rd running of the Preakness Stakes will not be distracted by pretty hats and sugary cocktails.
“When you get involved with horses it gets in your blood,” says Tsottles, who bought her first horse ? Sahara Mist ? for 50 bucks at the State Fair in Timonium in 1967 when she was 10.
“I walked her home from the fairgrounds, across York Road, past my parents’ house and to this little farm called Kentucky Stables at Pot Springs and Cinder Road,” she says.
Soon, she was working at local tracks and farms and has kept the equine faith ever since, watching the annual race for the blanket of Black-Eyed Susans ? from the Pimlico grandstand, the infield, the barns and TVs in bars and living rooms ? since she was a teenager.
“People who aren’t into that world get tired of hearing about horses all the time,” she says.
Which is why Saturday will be an intimate get-together of a half-dozen, like-minded souls.
Tsottles’ roots go back to Newkirk Street in Greektown ? she is related to the founders of the G&A Hot Dog empire ? and Greece before that. While others may be putting out chips and salsa at their Preakness soirees, Tsottles will serve strong coffee with a Byzantine walnut cake known as karithopita.
And she will be rooting for the “handsome” Big Brown ? “he has a chance to win the Triple Crown and has local connections” ? and thinking of her beloved father, Gus Tsottles, now living in Venice, Fla.
This Preakness day is the retired Poly history teacher’s 85th birthday.
“When I was 17 I was sort of wild, and my dad said he wouldn’t pay to board my horse unless I straightened up,” remembers Tsottles, who grew up in a 1960s Timonium before most of the small horse farms were cut up for houses.
“So I just gave her away to some girl who wanted her. My dad had put thousands of dollars into that horse, and I just gave her away. That’s when I started growing up.”
Sometimes, in her administrative gig with a local health care firm, Tsottles feels a little too grown up. She’s grateful for the security “but my real passion is working with animals.
“I think I’m going to get more involved with the racehorse rescue programs,” she says. “For the past six years I’ve done volunteer work caring for two Percherons [workhorses], they’re like Clydesdales.
“And I still visit a horse named Lord Duck, who was one of the fastest sprinters that ever raced at Pimlico. He’s 28 now, and I think he still remembers me.”
Across the years ? in which she eventually got on the same page with her father, buried her mother Jennie in 1987, far too soon, and wound up leaving the world of horses for a job with benefits, if not pleasure ? Tsottles witnessed a handful of Preakness Stakes not to be forgotten.
>> 1971 and Canonero II.
“He sold for $1,200 as a yearling, was shipped here from Venezuela, and overcame physical problems and shocked everyone with his Preakness win.”
>> 1973 and Secretariat.
“The whole world seemed to rooting for him.”
>> 1978 and Affirmed?s win over Alydar.
“They just kept dueling . . . nose for nose,length for length. Affirmed was always in the lead and Alydar would come from off the pace and try to catch him. Affirmed won by a neck.”
>> And in 1980, perhaps her most memorable Preakness of all: the controversial near-miss of that year’s Kentucky Derby winner ? the filly Genuine Risk ? in a loss to Codex.
“She should have won,” says Tsottles, going over the accepted facts: Codex jockey Angel Cordero, Jr. not only drifted wide to bump Genuine Risk away from her challenge, but Cordero was accused of turning to whip the charging filly across the head.
“It was an outrage! She’s still the only filly to finish in the money in all three Triple Crown races. She’s still living.”
As for the tragic filly in this year’s Derby ? Eight Belles ? Tsottles has feelings both mixed and bruised.
“She must have had a huge heart to dig in and stay anywhere close to Big Brown,” she says. “Horses should be a year older before these races, so they can develop more. But the tradition will never change.”
Before Eight Belles’ fatal fall in this year’s Derby, Tsottles says she “prayed before every race that everyone finished the race OK. Now my prayer is that everyone makes it back to the stable safe.”
Rafael Alvarez is a writer based in Highlandtown and Hollywood. His e-mail is [email protected].
