Havre de Grace. -- This used to be a racetrack town, and there are still people around who remember the racetrack days here, which ended in 1950. Some still talk about the local track with the nostalgia others reserve for their college days.
One from that generation was the late Sidney Schreter, a successful necktie manufacturer from Baltimore. As a kid growing up in Havre de Grace he'd galloped horses at the track and had thought about becoming a jockey, but his mother told him that was no occupation for a Jewish boy, and he went into the family business instead. Even so, he always said that the track had taught him a lot.
Mr. Schreter understood that a racetrack is an educational institution, and not only because it teaches people who go there for fun some new ways to lose their money. Those who work at racetracks get educated too. The lessons learned around the barns help produce tough practical people who deal well with life's varied challenges.
I've often thought it a pity that more people with racetrack training don't go into government. Parris Glendening is Maryland's best-educated governor in many years, but even he would no doubt have benefited from a few years walking hots, mucking stalls, and just hanging around the backstretch.
He couldn't have done that without some political risk, of course. It's a fact that Mr. Glendening doesn't look, talk or smell like a racetrack type, and that if he did he might not have been elected governor. Damon Runyon characters have been out of political fashion in Maryland since the Mandel years, and in uptight 1994 a racetrack aura might easily have cost a candidate some votes -- maybe even 6,000 of them.
Even so, the man running the state these next few years is going to need some special skills of the racetrack kind. He's going to need nerve, empathy and reliable instincts. This is because governors, like racetrackers, are expected to be able to control the almost-uncontrollable, and to do it routinely.
Mr. Glendening is a government professional who brings a cerebral approach to his work, which is a good start. But while he has the brains to do the job, sometimes more than brains are needed, and as he heads out to ride the big issues of taxing and spending, his situation vividly suggests a racetrack metaphor.
Anyone fortunate enough to have galloped a fit and eager thoroughbred race horse appreciates the subtle difference between maintaining control and getting run away with. With some horses, a moment's relaxation, or even a rider's effort to get a better grip on the reins, can turn a controlled pace into a runaway.
Runaways can be exciting, terrifying, embarrassing or a combination of all three. They're guaranteed to make the adrenalin pump. And although they're an experience every exercise rider knows, riders to whom they happen regularly will soon be out looking for other work.
Right now, Governor Glendening is in nominal control of the new legislature. But if he makes a false move, or if some little thing spooks it, it could easily bolt. Then he'd be in the same pickle as Bill Clinton.
Right now -- to extend this slightly spavined analogy a little more -- exercise rider Clinton is standing irrelevantly in the irons and sawing helplessly at the reins, while ol' Congress grabs the bit and rambles off at breakneck speed. There's no outrider around to rescue him, so about all he can do is hold on and hope it looks to those along the rail as though he's still in charge.
As he thunders past everyone else, foam and dirt flying, it all appears very dramatic, and he keeps a frozen smile on his face to show what fun he's having. He knows that eventually his horse will finish doing what it wanted to do and slow down, and that then he'll be able to pull up and get off. Meanwhile the backstretch population, which has seen plenty of runaways, leans on the rail and chuckles with delight.
On the racetrack, a horse on which the brakes don't work is said to be "rank," and it's fair to observe that the fire-breathing critter now running away with Mr. Clinton is a lot ranker than the mount Mr. Glendening's just taking out onto the track in Annapolis. They're only just breaking into a canter, but right now it looks as though Mr. Glendening still has his controls.
That doesn't guarantee success, however. Some exercise riders are too strong. They muscle their horses so much that the horses can't relax and do their best work. And while that's not as embarrassing as getting run away with, it's a failure all the same. On the track as in politics, real success lies in mastering the subtleties.
But enough about theory. The new kid's out on the racetrack now, loping along through the early-morning mist. It's a pretty picture. Whether we're racetrack-wise or not, it's time to pick up the binoculars and watch closely to see how he does.
Peter A. Jay is a writer and farmer.