Tag: Al Smallman

THE Finish Line at Emerald Downs (my dad’s final resting spot)

Published on by Andy Smallman6 Comments

You may recall that my dad died last year, almost exactly a year ago. Yesterday, my mother, my brothers, and I, along with three of my dad’s racetrack colleagues, honored his life by spreading his ashes on the racetrack at Emerald Downs. But not just anywhere on the racetrack, like in a tiny corner where the horses don’t run, but at the finish line.

In fact, we made my father’s final resting spot to be THE FINISH LINE. How poetic is that, especially for my dad, to become a visible line across a racetrack at the point where every race ends?

The photos below, I hope, put this in even better perspective than my short description here. As my mom said soon after we walked through the Winner’s Circle on our way out of the racetrack, “This was perfect.”

Indeed.

Spreading my dad’s ashes across the racetrack at Emerald Downs, we made a new finish line.
My mom, with a little help from me, gets THE finish line started.
Steve adds to the line.
Scott’s turn.
I moved over to the inside rail and connected the line to the center of the track.
My mom standing with her back to inside rail, the ashes remains of her husband now a line across the racetrack.
Soon after we had finished spreading the ashes at the finish line, the tractors came and my dad’s remains were more thoroughly merged into the racetrack.
Before opening up the box containing my father’s ashes, we posed for a picture in the Winner’s Circle, an apt place for my brothers, my mother, and me to pose with my father.

Before spreading the ashes, we stood in the Winner’s Circle and listened to legendary track announcer Robert Geller’s “race call” of my dad’s life, an obituary in the form of a track announcer’s call of a horse race: