Monday Morning Message with Jason Beem for Feb. 17, 2025

Jason discusses Sunday's power outage at Tampa and shares some stories from power outage past in his time in racing. 

A good Monday morning to you all! Hope you’re able to enjoy the holiday off today and possibly play the races wherever you might be. 

Got home a little early here on Sunday to write the column as we had a big power outage at Tampa this afternoon and had to cancel the last bit of the card. It honestly feels weird being back at my house at 4 p.m., but Mother Nature and the electric grid had other ideas for us today. 

I wrote a column a while back and talked about weather and cancellations and how it’s just part of the deal in a sport that relies on some level of decent weather. We can run in rain and wind in reasonable amounts – heck, even in snow. Today was a good reminder for me that without power everything just comes to a screeching halt. The starting gate can’t operate; the photo finish, timers, tote system, TV, all was gone, so it was a bit crazy. Even me in my little perch, I tried hitting my on/off button just to see if anything happened, and it was all dead. 

The whole event reminded me of a night at Portland Meadows back in the summer of 2012. It was the first year of what I believe was a two- or three-year experiment with running during the summer months at Portland. Locally it was awesome because we had big crowds on track, and going to the races is just more fun with a nice crowd. But on simulcast, we got buried because obviously in the summer there’s better and more tracks running. 

But one summer night, I believe it was a Friday night, we were getting ready for the card to start. We might have run one race, but we certainly were at the beginning of the night when the area transformer blew up. The entire Delta Park neighborhood was dark as the sun had recently gone down – Elmer's Pancake House, Mars Meadows Chinese Restaurant, and the track, all pitch black. 

But my lasting memory from that night really comes from when one of our stewards came over to my booth and asked me to announce that we were canceling the race card. I looked at him and just kind of stared blankly, realizing he didn’t understand that the power being out meant the PA system wasn’t working. Finally I started to smile and said, “I can’t, the power is out,” and it hit him, and we both cracked up. 

At River Downs, we had a power outage my first year there, and they had me walk through the grandstand with a megaphone to announce to the people that we had to cancel because of the power being out. It’s amazing how reliant we are on electricity and more so now, internet connectivity. My phone sim card went out the other day, and I felt helpless like I had no way to get a hold of anyone. Horse racing relies on a ton of little things to all function correctly in order to run, and quite often one of those little things goes out, and we end up having to cancel or delay. Just part of the game unfortunately.  

I was trying to think while typing this if every track I’ve worked at has had to cancel due to power outages at some point. Colonial definitely has, River Downs did, Portland did. I’m guessing Monmouth and Louisiana Downs didn’t, but I was only at both for short spans. Louisiana Downs we had to cancel one day because of like a half-inch of snow. I was shocked how many business in Shreveport closed that day because they almost never get snow, and even the half-inch was enough to shut it down!

But like always, we move forward and we move on. Have a great week everyone!