For most people, driving harness horses in parimutuel races would be living in the fast lane. For Bill McEnery, it has been a change of pace.
McEnery spent 10 years racing automobiles on the short-track circuit before retiring after a major crash in the early 1970s.
”I never got hurt physically,” he remembers. ”It`s what could have happened. I thought I killed somebody.
”Bud Kohler and I had been at each other`s throats. We were going through the pack at Grundy County, and we were going at it. We flipped, and it was a real bad wreck. I feared for Bud`s life. Luckily, he came out of it okay, too. But that was it for me. I got out of car racing and right into harness racing.”
McEnery, the newly elected president of the Illinois Harness Horsemen`s Association, is anything but a typical harness driver. He is competing for the love of the sport, not to make a living.
As IHHA president, he is in a unique position. He serves as the collective bargaining agent for the rank and file horsemen in contract negotiations with track owners. At the same time, he is a self-made multimillionaire.
Money talks, and McEnery is fluent in the language.
The Chicago native who is the oldest of 11 children has made a fortune as a business entrepreneur. He started the Gas City chain in the early `60s, and it has become a megabucks business.
Early every morning, he`s at work behind his desk at the Gas City headquarters in Frankfort. Then by night, he becomes a harness driver. And somehow he also manages to find time to discharge his duties as president of the IHHA.
”I try to make every minute count,” says McEnery. ”I like to watch good horses and good drivers, I love to compete, and I care very much about the harness industry. I work hard at my business, and I work hard in harness racing.”
McEnery has about 25 standardbreds in his stable, most of which are middle-range and high-priced claimers. Several of his horses have been imported from New Zealand.
The purses in Chicago harness racing have started to climb because of off-track betting, but not fast enough for the IHHA`s speed-oriented president.
”I think they should be betting between $2 million and $4 million every day in Chicago,” McEnery says. ”The OTB parlors became legal in July, 1987. They should all be up by now. The track owners have been dragging their feet. ”I also think racetracks take a lot of things for granted,” he continued. ”They haven`t created any new customers in the last 20 years. They`re sitting on a market area that probably has 20 million people all told. Why don`t they advertise more?
”Racetracks today all are making big money because of OTB. The horsemen`s split at the track is 50-50. But now it`s not really because under the legislation, we`ve lost 25 percent of the money bet through OTB. There`s enough in it for everybody, and the horsemen are the ones who need it the most.”
