| Chapter 10: Another Opening Day for White
This was a story written about The Lovely Lois, which appeared in the Trentonian in 2000. Another Opening Day for White Linda Dougherty The Trentonian Saturday, May 27, 2000 Oceanport, NJ- Lois White hads't been to just one opening day at Monmouth Park. She's been to them ALL. That's right, the Long Branch native has attended every gala home opener of this beautiful shore racetrack since 1946, when it reopened under the watchful eyes of Amory L. Haskell and Philip H. Iselin, after pari-mutuel betting had been banned and the old planted shuttered. There aren't many people around who can break that track record. White, now 73, will be in her usual spot today in the clubhouse, atop the tunnel that leads from the paddock to the racetrack, welcoming the return of live racing from now until September 3. Back when the track was new, the treee in the walking ring were mere saplings, and she could see the paddock tote board from her window. She regreats that the trees have now obstructed her view of the odds, but doesn't regret spending most of the last 53 summers at this breezy seashore resort. "I look forward to opening day all year", said White, who attended Monmouth's first day of live racing in '46 with her mother and her best friend. "Some years, I've only missed one or two days all season long." Back in the 1950's, White and her first husband (she was known as Lois Stevens then) would rent rooms in their house, located about a mile from Monmouth, to those in town for the season. Most of them worked at the track. "It was extra money for me, and sometimes I got free passes," she said. Some of the personalities that stayed in her house were jockey Nick Shuk, trainer Gordon Potter, and Chick Lang, who was jockey Bill Hartack's agent. In the addition to the occasional hot tip they'd toss her way, White's boarders also left her with a barnful of fond memories, like the time Shuk used a screen from a horse stall to grill 30 pounds of spareribs over a hole he'd dug in her backyard. White, whose son Chris is a host for the Racing Network, isn't just a casual racing fan- she's a horseplayer. She knows what's going on in the national racing picture, as well as who's doing what locally. Say White: "If New Jersey ever wises up and puts slots at racetracks, they would get bigger purses and better horses, like Delaware Park." That's something for racing officials and politicians to ponder. Come rain or come shine, come hell or high water, she doesn't like to miss an afternoon betting the ponies at Monmouth. "If I plan on going to the track I don't care what the weather is," she said. "Of course, I like to see a lot of horses runing in each race... I don't like short fields." White, who is good friends with trainer Danny Perlsweig's wife Pat (they graduate together from Long Branch High School in 1945), knows how to read the Daily Racing Form, but very seldom buys it anymore. "It's too expensive, and I'd rather use the money and put it on a horse," she said. "I use the track program to handicap, and I don't buy tip sheets." And her favorite bet? Trifectas. "Years ago, the Daily Double was all they had," she recalled. "I never played the trifecta. I thought, 'Gee, that's a dumb bet.' Then one time I had two dollars and played my old house number 1-3-7. Well, it came in and paid $436. That hooked me on trifectas. "If I play a tri, I play a $1 box or I key one horse over three other horses. Once I played a 3-10-2 tri, one horse I loked over two longshots. The winner paind $28, and the tri came bad over $4,000", she said. Through her 53 summers in Oceanport, White has had many favorites in the trainer and jockey colonies, including trainers J.B. and Bernie Bond and riders Joe Bravo and Julie Krone, the latter to be inducted this August into racing's Hall of Fame. "I like Bravo but I could never win a bet with him", she said with a laugh. "If I bet him, he lost; if I didn't bet him, he won. I loved Julie Krone- I thought she took a lot of chances." Even though White has been here in Oceanport from the beginning, she also wants to be there in the end. "She always tells the family that when she dies, she wants to be cremated and have her ashes sprinkled across the finish line," said her son Chris. A more loyal fan Monmouth Park may never find. |
| T h e L o v e l y L o i s S t o r y A Biography of Lois Eleanor White |
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| Loey in clubhouse seat |