Thursday Thoughts with Jason Beem for June 12, 2025

A good Thursday morning to you all! Father’s Day weekend is coming up and I know for many of us racing fans, our love of the sport and betting on it came from our dads. I’m no exception to this as my dad was taking me to Longacres, Yakima Meadows, and Portland Meadows from the time I was a little kid. I can still remember walking in from the parking lot (the free lot because dad refused to pay $2 to park close) whipping my leg with the rolled up newspaper pretending I was Gary Boulanger riding home a winner. 

My dad’s been gone almost 24 years now so my memories of him sadly have started to fade in some ways, but I have so many little visuals like that parking lot one above that I feel like I can still remember. I try to talk about and remember those times every so often, just hoping they’ll stay with me for as long as possible. 

I’ve often joked on the show that the best marketing we have in our game is parents bringing their kids to the races. Of course it’s not going to click with all of them, but when you’re little, it’s just so possible to fall in love with it. I think when we’re young we’re so much more open to things. To learn and experience the world around us. We don’t have all our preconceived notions or tons of experiences to cloud the new experiences. When I was little there was nothing that seemed bigger or more important than the races. As an older man now I can look back and see that a big part of that was because I knew it was something my dad liked and I knew it was a way for us to spend time together and have fun. I think at the time I just wanted to be a jockey and thought it was so cool that I could bet $2 of my dad’s money and get back $4.70. Yeah, I was a bit of a chalk hound as a kid. 

One thing I don’t remember is asking my dad how he got into horse racing. I know my grandparents would have never taken him. They were always very against gambling of any kind. I always assumed it was his buddies in college or something because my dad was always very into the races and poker for as long as I was alive. He would occasionally go and roll craps but other than that, it was all horses and poker. My mom ran a poker room for years in Renton, Washington called Diamond Lil’s and it was two miles from Longacres. As a kid you’d see a bunch of the players with both a racing form in hand and cards in the other hand. There was so much overlap between poker players and horseplayers. Now I think there’s hardly any.

I think a lot of the reason I chose to work in racing is because of the connection to my dad. It’s been a way to participate in something we both loved and to keep his memory a bit closer to me as time makes that more difficult. I have a real sadness that he never got to see or hear me call a race as I think he’d have found it pretty cool. I sometimes think about what it would be like if he was alive and I could call him to ask him his thoughts about the Arlington Million (G1) or Tampa Bay Derby (G3) on the morning of those big races. I always make a point to think about him and my mom before those big race calls, just as a way of reminding myself to be calm and to think about something positive before those important work moments. I still remember before my first big race I ever called, the 2006 Cradle Stakes at River Downs, I said out loud “Dad, help me through this.” That race went pretty well and ever since then, I try to bring him along with me for big races in some kind of cosmic energy way. Just by saying his name or thinking of him.  

I hope if you’re reading this and your dad is still around, that you get to enjoy this coming weekend with him. If he’s not, I hope you’re filled with good memories that he left behind with you.  

Happy Father’s Day!