Track workers confront their addictions through a little-known program at Churchill Downs

It's been almost two years since Don Hart collapsed on a barn floor at Churchill Downs, overdosing on heroin he'd injected just minutes before.

The career horse groomer had been using opiates for nearly two decades. But the dose he took that day — May 25, 2016 — was unlike any he'd tried before. It had been laced with fentanyl, a drug strong enough to kill the horse Hart was feeding when he blacked out. And as it took control of his body, Hart's addiction became something he and the track could no longer ignore.

Using drugs at a racetrack can get someone automatically thrown off its premises. When dealing with thousand-pound horses, workers need all five senses. And if Hart wanted to stay in the only job he'd ever known, officials said he'd have to get clean.

This month, Hart will celebrate two years of sobriety thanks to a little-known program operating on the Churchill Downs backside that's been addressing substance abuse in horse racing for almost 30 years.

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It's called the Healing Place Lifestyle Program at Churchill Downs, and it's withstood funding cuts and criticism to provide a much-needed resource for the track's transient workers who can receive counseling, attend alcoholics anonymous meetings and get other support from an on-track counselor.

Drug and alcohol abuse isn't more rampant in horse racing than it is in any other industry, those involved with the program say. But horse racing's unusual culture can make it difficult for people to find the help they need, and Churchill's program has become a pillar in the movement to improve services for thousands of backside employees nationwide.

The movement, for some, has been frustratingly slow. For decades, they've championed a national network that could support backside employees who struggle with substance abuse, mental health disorders or other social issues as they move between tracks. But resulting programs, thus far, remain scattered across states — unconnected and inconsistent.

The problem, advocates say: No one can decide who should be responsible for organizing or funding such a network — be it the tracks themselves, the horse owners who employ the workers or the state horse racing commission stewards who ensure the integrity of the sport.

But as more people begin to openly talk about substance abuse and recovery, the Churchill Downs program and others like it have begun to receive renewed support. Now, some advocates hope an industry-wide change isn't far off.

LIFE ON THE BACKSIDE

Horse racing is unlike any other industry.

It's made up of thousands of workers who move from track to track, finding work with any barn that will give them a contract.

The workers spend their days rising before dawn to attend to their horses, performing backbreaking jobs that weigh on them mentally and physically. And they often live in residential buildings that are just feet from the barns, rarely stepping foot outside the track's fenced perimeters.

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The setup can create an isolated community for the low-paid workers who have little to do outside of caring for the horses, leading some to use substances out of stress or boredom.

But the employees say that when a horse they've trained or groomed takes off from the starting gate at a heart-stopping clip, it's easy to forget why anyone would consider leaving the track.

"It was like a kid graduating when you took them to their first race," said Lisa Sloan, who retired from the industry in 2015. "You had covered all the bases to help them perform. ... And when you know it's the best that they've got and they give it to you, it's like graduation day. It always brings tears to my eyes to go through that whole journey with them."

Sloan got her first taste for horse racing as a teenager in Hot Springs, Arkansas, where she pretended to be a trainer's daughter to get access to the backside of Oaklawn Park.

Over the years, she moved up the career ladder from hotwalker to assistant trainer, becoming one of the few women to hold that position. And by the time she retired, she'd helped trained back-to-back champions.

Sloan's success was hindered, however, by an addiction to alcohol that left her numb to the sport and life in general.

She'd started drinking socially as a young track worker, but as she took on additional responsibilities, alcohol became a stress reliever Sloan couldn't go a day without.

"People would wonder why I wouldn't get more excited when we won big races," Sloan said. "There was always stress on my face. They knew I was a very businesslike person on the racetrack, so they took it as that's all it was. ... But a lot of it was carrying around the shame and guilt of starting another day and not wanting to drink but knowing you were going to drink."

Sloan finally reached her limit on May 7, 2007, two days after that year's Kentucky Derby. She'd spoken to a retired jockey, himself a recovering alcoholic, at the encouragement of the lifestyle program's counselor. The talk made Sloan realize it was finally time to get help, and with support of the counselor, she entered outpatient treatment.

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Without the lifestyle program, "I don't know if I would ever have had the courage to look for treatment myself or know where to go," Sloan said. "It was vital to me not being broken down and drunk somewhere."

GETTING HOOCH OFF THE TRACK

The Churchill Downs lifestyle program officially launched in July 1989, but its said to have originated 50 years earlier with a promise from racetrack brat Paul McDonald.

As a child in the 1930s, McDonald accompanied his father on trips to Lincoln Field in Chicago (now known as Balmoral Park), where he became friends with a popular trainer.

During one of their visits, McDonald and his father found the trainer collapsed in a stall, vomiting blood into a bed of straw. No ambulance could reach the man in time, and he died at the track — the victim of a condition McDonald later learned was associated with excessive drinking.

"It marked Paul so much that he vowed if he ever had a chance to do something about 'hooch on the racetrack' ... that he would do that," said Curtis Barrett, a retired psychiatrist who McDonald later tapped to develop the Churchill Downs lifestyle program.

By the 1980s, McDonald had become familiar with Tom Meeker, who served as the president of Churchill Downs from 1984 to 2006. McDonald knew Meeker had already instituted an employee assistance program on the track's front side as a resource for people who worked at betting windows and in other positions. He asked Meeker if he'd be interested in launching a similar program for backside employees.

The program would be available to backside workers who'd violated racing commission rules and faced expulsion from the track. But it would also be for employees who personally recognized they had a problem and wanted to seek treatment.

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Meeker, also a recovering alcoholic, jumped at the proposal, dedicating $50,000 in funding from Churchill Downs to start a program.

With the president's commitment, McDonald reached out to military friend Barrett, who had served with him in the Navy and was then acting as chief psychiatrist at the Norton Psychiatric Clinic.

Barrett agreed to shape a program based on a similar Naval initiative, and by 1989, he was ready to set up an office on the track's backside.

Meeker carved out space for the lifestyle program in a prominent building near the track's fence, where people could come and go as they pleased.

"He did that very deliberately because he said that's the crossroads of the racetrack," Barrett said of the building, where the program is still located today. "Some trainers would come in for coffee every morning; there were a couple veterinarians who loved getting peanuts that we had to take to the horses. That let our people become part of the whole culture. They were not isolated or stigmatized."

Not everyone thought the program was necessary. At a New York conference after its launch, Barrett led a presentation for industry leaders who he encouraged to take up programs of their own.

When he finished, "nobody spoke for quite awhile. Finally, one hand went up and it was a prominent trainer. He said, 'Doc, I run a racetrack. I don't run a social work organization.' I deflated. That took the total air out of my balloon," Barrett said.

That feeling, he's noticed, hasn't entirely changed.

TAKING RESPONSIBILITY

By the early 2000s, Churchill Downs reduced funding for the lifestyle program, and Barrett was forced to find another source.

The Healing Place, which runs two addiction recovery centers in Louisville, stepped in with an annual $25,000 grant.

"We understood they just really don't have access to a lot of community services because they're so insular," Healing Place director Karyn Hascal said. "Their work schedules are so unlike anything else that they have a hard time fitting into any schedules outside of the track. ... What we're doing at Churchill is very tailored and specific to Churchill Downs."

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Former assistant trainer Linda Doane, who holds a master's degree in counseling, began working for the program more than 15 years ago and now leads it from the central office.

She breathalyzes employees who've been cited for intoxication and provides space for bilingual alcoholics anonymous meetings twice a week. She finds room for workers at treatment programs when they need more than her counseling can provide, and she's been a friend to many backside employees who say they wouldn't have survived without her.

"It's a good program," said trainer William "Jinks" Fires, who's worked at Churchill Downs since 1961. "People that have problems on the racetrack, whether it be alcohol or drugs or whatever, we try to get them to go over there and at least talk to them. Linda's pretty persuasive about getting people to follow up. She's a class act over there."

Similar programs can be found on tracks in California, Maryland and New York; but as of now, no organization has created an overarching network of substance abuse or mental health resources for backside employees.

Hascal said the Healing Place has spoken with the Lexington-based Jockeys' Guild about forming a national system that could transfer information between counselors at various tracks — but the idea never got off the ground.

"That was the big dream," Hascal said. "It hasn't taken off because of funding and who's going to be responsible for that?

"There are so many people whose hands are in the jigsaw puzzle," she continued, from horse owners to racing commission stewards. "But they're all very independent and autonomous, in my sense."

Chauncey Morris said he agrees that owners and trainers have been reticent to get involved with substance abuse programs before. But the executive director of the Kentucky Thoroughbred Association said he feels a shift taking place.

For the past two years, the association has raised thousands of dollars for the lifestyle program, along with the nonprofit Backside Learning Center at Churchill Downs, through its Kentucky Derby Trainers' Dinner.

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"In racing, we're not a terribly vertically integrated industry," Morris said. "Each trainer is an independent contractor, and workers are often in the same boat. Many of those people in other industries, where they would have (human resources) directors that might point them to similar programs, racing doesn't have that.

"We know it's the right thing to do to look after our workers' well-being. I concur that maybe in the past it was that way, but we all know we have to be responsible for each other now."

A MOMENT TO BREATHE

After his collapse in 2016, Hart spent 10 months in the Healing Place's free recovery center before returning to the Churchill Downs backside.

He still remembers that day in May, waking up from the barn floor to a crowd of concerned eyes.

"I asked the ambulance man to pause, and I looked around to see everybody looking at me," Hart said. "That's what really woke me up to reality. If it wasn't for the ambulance being right there at the racetrack, I would have been gone."

Hart wears a white rubber bracelet from the Healing Place that he hasn't taken off since he left the center. It's dingy now; he needs a new one. He also needs to reach back out to men he met at the center as a reminder that he's not alone, Doane says.

"You need to start that process again because it's important for you to have in your life," Doane said recently, casually switching from friend to counselor mode. "It's time to reel you back in a little."

Hart nodded his head and repeated the statement: "It's time to reel me back in."

He left Doane's office and slung a leg over a bicycle parked outside. He promised he'd be back after Saturday's Kentucky Derby to talk about what reeling him in could look like.

Maybe after the race he'd have a small moment to breathe.

Bailey Loosemore: 502-582-4646; bloosemore@courier-journal.com; Twitter: @bloosemore. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: www.courier-journal.com/baileyl.