00:00:00LAINER: No-
HUGHES: --now well, I--
LAINER: --I would be afraid--
HUGHES: --well, I did that and then, well, you exercise them in the morning to
get them ready to run in the evening. That's the idea of exercising them, and
you do everything that they do in the evening in the morning.
LAINER: That's--
HUGHES: Oh.
LAINER: (laughs) So what would happen if you didn't exercise a horse in the morning?
HUGHES: Oh, you had to, you had to exercise them in the morning to limber them
up, um-hm. As soon as--well, you feed them early in the morning, then you put
the saddle on, and take them around the track, get them ready for--get them
ready to run. There's a lot of training in the morning.
LAINER: Um-hm, I'm going to out and see if Ms. Marilyn is ready.
HUGHES: Okay, Marilyn.
00:01:00
LAINER: All right.
DISHMAN: I'm ready.
LAINER: Testing.
DISHMAN: Hello, Mr. Hughes, how are you? Can you tell me your complete name and
tell me exactly where we are right now and what we're doing?
HUGHES: My name is John Joe Hughes Sr.
DISHMAN: Okay.
HUGHES: And--
DISHMAN: --where were you--
HUGHES: --and I'm here for the interview at the Lyric Theatre.
DISHMAN: Okay.
HUGHES: I'm trying to back away.
DISHMAN: Yeah, okay. I understand that you're in the racehorse industry? So if
you don't mind, give me a little idea of, first of all, what you did or do in
the horse industry and secondly, how did you get into it?
HUGHES: It seemed like that's where--at the time, it looked like that's where a
lot of fellows were going, to the racetracks, so that's what I did. I
00:02:00followed suit; I went out there too. I was out there before I went in the
service in the forties.
DISHMAN: Hmm--
HUGHES: --yeah.
DISHMAN: --kind of young to be going to the track, huh?
HUGHES: Well--
DISHMAN: Were you--
HUGHES: --it's--
DISHMAN: --going for entertainment or you working?
HUGHES: I went out there to call myself to ride, you know, to--
DISHMAN: --oh, okay.
HUGHES: --to work.
DISHMAN: Okay. As a--
HUGHES: I was like the exercise boy--
DISHMAN: --oh, that's what--
HUGHES: --I tried--
DISHMAN: --going to ask you.
HUGHES: --I tried that.
DISHMAN: Yeah, okay. Were you independent? Did you work for anybody, or did you
work for one specific person?
HUGHES: I think it was--I worked for one [s]pecific person.
DISHMAN: Do you mind saying who that was?
HUGHES: It was so far back--
DISHMAN: --can't remember?
HUGHES: --I can't remember.
DISHMAN: I understand. Well, thank you. How long have you been in the horse industry?
HUGHES: Like I guess at least twenty years.
DISHMAN: Okay.
HUGHES: Um-hm, off and on, maybe longer.
DISHMAN: Okay. Now besides being an exercise boy, did you do anything else?
00:03:00
HUGHES: Later on, I was a groom, started to, you know, taking care of them,
taking them to the racetrack and stuff like that.
DISHMAN: Okay. Any horses that we might know?
HUGHES: Not particularly, no--
DISHMAN: --okay, any trainer?
HUGHES: Syl Beech, with C.V. [Cornelius Vanderbilt] Whitney with him and, hmm, I
can't think of another guy--oh, Bud Greely, I worked for him a long time.
DISHMAN: Okay.
HUGHES: His son was the president of Keeneland, Bill--
DISHMAN: --yeah, I know--
HUGHES: --Bill Greeley--
DISHMAN: --I went to school with his wife.
HUGHES: Is that right?
DISHMAN: Yeah.
HUGHES: Bill. And what else? Syl Beech (??). There's so many names and things
that just I can't pull up. (laughs)
DISHMAN: Okay. Mr. Hughes, do you mind giving me your birthdate by
00:04:00any chance?
HUGHES: Yeah, 5/9/26.
DISHMAN: So you just had a birthday.
HUGHES: Just had a birthday.
DISHMAN: Belated happy birthday.
HUGHES: Thank you. Last--when was it--the ninth?
DISHMAN: Yes. That's the same day as my brother. Didn't you say you knew Bernard
Dishman too?
HUGHES: Yeah, um-hm.
DISHMAN: Yeah, he turned--oh let me see here, I'm seventy--he turned seventy-two.
HUGHES: Really?
DISHMAN: Um-hm.
HUGHES: Young--youngster.
DISHMAN: Oh, okay--(Hughes laughs)--thanks for the compliment. (both laugh)
Okay. And when you worked at the track, where did you do majority of your work,
at what track?
HUGHES: Keeneland.
DISHMAN: At Keeneland in Lexington?
HUGHES: Um-hm. But I wind up going to Wilmington, Delaware, New York--
DISHMAN: --at the Aqueduct [Racetrack]?
HUGHES: --what I say? Oh--
DISHMAN: --New York.
HUGHES: --Belmont, Belmont--
DISHMAN: --Belmont--
HUGHES: --Park in--
DISHMAN: --okay.
HUGHES: --in New York, New Jersey, and where else? Oh, Churchill Downs.
00:05:00
DISHMAN: In Churchill?
HUGHES: Um-hm.
DISHMAN: Hey, that's cool.
HUGHES: Yeah, yeah, Churchill.
DISHMAN: Of those tracks that you mentioned, how were you treated and what was
your favorite track?
HUGHES: Oh, I loved Belmont Park. It was beautiful, big, huge track, a mile and
a half, and I enjoyed that, and I was with Whitney. And then, uh, it was nice
just being up there, witnessed, you know, everything going on. Oh, and I went to
California, Santa Anita.
DISHMAN: Wow.
HUGHES: That was beautiful.
DISHMAN: Yeah, it is a beautiful track, okay.
HUGHES: And--
DISHMAN: --do you have any other family members that are involved with the horse industry?
HUGHES: No.
DISHMAN: You're in it all by yourself?
HUGHES: Um-hm.
DISHMAN: Well, how come you didn't spread the great news?
HUGHES: I didn't want my son going there. (laughs)
00:06:00
DISHMAN: Oh, is there any particular reason?
HUGHES: I just didn't--
DISHMAN: --it is dangerous.
HUGHES: --I didn't want him to get that in his blood.
DISHMAN: (laughs) Okay.
HUGHES: Because once you--
DISHMAN: --yeah.
HUGHES: --once you get it in there, you can't get it out. And I didn't want that
to happen to him--
DISHMAN: You had other--
HUGHES: --because--
DISHMAN: --plans for him?
HUGHES: I mean for him to make his mind up just so he didn't go to the
racetrack. I didn't care where he went, just so he didn't--but he wound up an
eighteen-wheeler truck driver--
DISHMAN: --wow.
HUGHES: --UPS.
DISHMAN: Yeah.
HUGHES: And he retired from that.
DISHMAN: Okay.
HUGHES: But I just didn't want him to go on no racetrack.
DISHMAN: Do you have any notable races or events that really stick out in your mind?
HUGHES: I love that Kentucky Derby.
DISHMAN: Who doesn't?
HUGHES: Yeah, but I didn't--(laughs) I actually went to the Kentucky Derby, 1947.
DISHMAN: Okay.
HUGHES: My mother give me two dollars.
DISHMAN: You could get in for two dollars back then?
HUGHES: --no, excuse me, let me back up. I was in the army then--
00:07:00
DISHMAN: --right.
HUGHES: --1947.
DISHMAN: Okay.
HUGHES: I didn't get back to Lexington till the next day, couldn't catch a bus.
DISHMAN: Oh, okay.
HUGHES: She gave me two dollars to bet on a horse named Jet Pilot--
DISHMAN: --Jet Pilot.
HUGHES: --and I didn't think she'd know what she was talking about. And I took
the two dollars and bet on Riskolater. It haunted me all of my--all of her life
as I--she corrected me.
DISHMAN: Whoa.
HUGHES: Yeah. You see, so--
DISHMAN: --so I take it your horse--
HUGHES: --I never did--
DISHMAN: --didn't win--
HUGHES: --live--no. (laughs) Her horse won--
DISHMAN: --yes.
HUGHES: --and she said, "Well, where is it?" I said, "I'd have to send it to
you, I don't have no money," so I had to live with that for--
DISHMAN: --um-hm, I understand--
HUGHES: --a long--forever.
DISHMAN: What, you're too old to get a good whipping?
HUGHES: That was enough whipping right there--(Dishman laughs)--when she bring
it up.
DISHMAN: Right, I understand.
HUGHES: She said, "You know, you f--" I said, "Oh God, let's don't go there."
(Dishman laughs) Because I shouldn't have--I should have told the
00:08:00story, but I didn't. But anyway, that was fun.
DISHMAN: Okay. That's--
HUGHES: --she got--
DISHMAN: --nice.
HUGHES: --a kick out of that.
DISHMAN: Yeah. So I guess there are no traditions in your family that got passed
down since you're the only one?
HUGHES: No--
DISHMAN: --okay.
HUGHES: --unh-uh. After I got into it just, you know, you can't get out of it.
DISHMAN: I know.
HUGHES: So I think I must have left that three times before I got away and went
to the University of Kentucky. I'm retired from UK. I retired from there.
DISHMAN: What did you do there?
HUGHES: Maintenance, just everything, what needed--
DISHMAN: --I remember you--
HUGHES: --to be done.
DISHMAN: --telling me that.
HUGHES: Yeah, at--
DISHMAN: --yeah.
HUGHES: --the UK, I--and I enjoyed that.
DISHMAN: You know what's funny? My father retired three times before he actually
finally retired.
HUGHES: It--
DISHMAN: And I agree with you--
HUGHES: --it's that--
DISHMAN: --it is something.
HUGHES: --hard.
DISHMAN: It really is.
HUGHES: I mean I left one time at UK, and I hate to tell that story, and went
back out to Keeneland and was standing out there in the green grass
00:09:00and everything. And I said, "What am I doing here? (Dishman laughs) What am I
doing here?"
DISHMAN: Oh.
HUGHES: I did that three times before I--because the lady, her name is Ms. Hill
out there at the UK, and she looked up. She said, "What are you doing back
here?" She said, "I hope this is it," I said, "You won't see me again."
DISHMAN: Oh.
HUGHES: And she was a nice woman, she says--she'd say, "get yourself together."
DISHMAN: Ooooh.
HUGHES: And that was--
DISHMAN: --how old were you then?
HUGHES: God, oh, what was I, fifty-something, late fifties.
DISHMAN: Oh, okay, so you were old--
HUGHES: --um-hm, acting--
DISHMAN: --enough.
HUGHES: --like that, yeah. But it's that hard to get away from that. You just
don't walk away from the racetrack.
DISHMAN: What makes you feel like it's too hard to get away from it?
HUGHES: I just--I haven't been able to find that out, what--
DISHMAN: --okay.
HUGHES: --you know, what it is. Because I ran into a man named Andy,
00:10:00and he told me he was retired from the racetrack. I told him, "That's unheard
of, to retire from racetrack." (Dishman laughs) I said, "You either drop dead in
the shed row"--
DISHMAN: --yeah.
HUGHES: --"or die in the bed, you don't retire."
DISHMAN: You got that.
HUGHES: He said, "Well I did." I said, "Well, you're one of the--you one of
the--some odd ones."
DISHMAN: Now--
HUGHES: --oh.
DISHMAN: --you mentioned in our earlier talks that you knew my father.
HUGHES: Um-hm.
DISHMAN: How did you get to know Oscar Dishman?
HUGHES: Well, now, it might have been his son I was galloping horses with.
DISHMAN: Um-hm, it was.
HUGHES: --Oscar then and then I worked with his daddy, with C.V. Whitney up in
New York.
DISHMAN: Yeah.
HUGHES: Oscar did. And then I think later on in life, he went to work for a
Standardbred on a farm--
DISHMAN: --unh-uh.
HUGHES: --you don't--what--you don't think so?
DISHMAN: No, I know not.
HUGHES: Okay.
DISHMAN: Yeah, he always--
HUGHES: --well, I'm wrong
00:11:00
DISHMAN: --worked with the thoroughbreds, yeah.
HUGHES: I might have got that wrong.
DISHMAN: I would like to ask you what kind of man was he to you? I know what he
was to me, but what kind of man was he--
HUGHES: --oh, we was close, racetrack is--I mean we had a lot--
DISHMAN: --it's family--
HUGHES: --in common.
DISHMAN: --I know.
HUGHES: Yeah, we had a lot in common.
DISHMAN: The same people tend to go from track to track. Because I remember when
we'd be--
HUGHES: --yeah.
DISHMAN: --at Miami, we'd see the same people that we saw at Churchill and Arlington--
HUGHES: --yeah.
DISHMAN: --and so forth, okay.
HUGHES: You'd pack up all that stuff and go from track to track.
DISHMAN: I know.
HUGHES: Yeah, um-hm.
DISHMAN: Yeah. How would you like to be remembered?
HUGHES: I'd like to be remembered that I tried to do something to uplift or try
to help somebody in life. Is that okay?
DISHMAN: And I think it's great. You've helped me--
HUGHES: --yeah, I try--
DISHMAN: --by just talking with me. It's so--
HUGHES: --yeah.
DISHMAN: --fulfilling.
HUGHES: Well, I hate to leave this out, but I wind up a alcoholic by--I don't
know if the track had anything to do with it.
00:12:00
DISHMAN: It might have.
HUGHES: I don't know that, but thank God, I overcome that--
DISHMAN: Good--
HUGHES: --by--
DISHMAN: --on your own?
HUGHES: My mother praying.
DISHMAN: I'd say your mom had a lot to do with who you are.
HUGHES: That's why I'm here.
DISHMAN: All right. That's--
HUGHES: Her last words, she said I'd be all right.
DISHMAN: Oh, that's wonderful.
HUGHES: So I quote that every morning.
DISHMAN: Yeah.
HUGHES: That's very heavy--
DISHMAN: --I can imagine--
HUGHES: --that I would be all right, and I am.
DISHMAN: Yeah, I'd say that--
HUGHES: --I am.
DISHMAN: Okay.
HUGHES: --I am.
DISHMAN: Yeah, that's good. Of all your achievements, what makes you the proudest?
HUGHES: Hmm, the proudest is, I had a mother, I had a mother that cared, and
that meant--that was everything to me. Not a lot of people can't say that--
DISHMAN: --yeah.
HUGHES: --but I had a mother.
DISHMAN: Yeah.
00:13:00
HUGHES: Okay.
DISHMAN: Now, I can't recall, did you bring in some documents and photos that
you shared with us?
HUGHES: Yes, um-hm. I'd rather for them to be here than for me to have them at home.
DISHMAN: I agree, we'll probably take better care of them.
HUGHES: Um-hm--(Dishman laughs)--Yeah. This is where I wanted them. I was glad
something like this come up because I didn't know what I was going--what do with
them. And when this come up, I was tickled to death.
[Pause in recording.]
HUGHES: Um-hm. --That I do, I agree with you
DISHMAN: How did you hear about this project, the Chronicle project?
HUGHES: Let's see. I don't know if I was talking to Toliver (??) or somebody.
[Pause in recording.]
DISHMAN: It's very possible you could have gotten it from him.
HUGHES: I might have got it from--
DISHMAN: --oh--
HUGHES: --him, Thomas.
DISHMAN: --do you frequent the Lyric [Theater], excuse me, because we had
posters and stuff here too?
00:14:00
HUGHES: Oh, yes, um-hm, I--yes, um-hm, I support it.
DISHMAN: So you found it rather enjoyable--
HUGHES: --sure--
DISHMAN: --doing this?
HUGHES: --um-hm.
DISHMAN: I'm so--
HUGHES: --yeah.
DISHMAN: --grateful for what you've done.
HUGHES: I'm--I had no idea what I--what kind of help I could be. (laughs) I
don't know what--
DISHMAN: I have one question I want to ask you though because I don't know your
marital status. When you were working at the track, were you married by any chance?
HUGHES: I was, and at racetrack is not for people that's married--(Dishman
laughs)--not for everybody. It don't work out that way. It didn't work for me.
DISHMAN: I was going to ask you, did that have any bearing on your--when you
retired when you--
[Pause in recording.]
HUGHES: Yeah.
DISHMAN: Yeah, okay.
HUGHES: Yes, I was warned, but I said, "Ah, that's not going to happen to me."
DISHMAN: Of course not. (laughs) Okay.
HUGHES: I said, "No, that's not going to happen," but it did.
00:15:00
DISHMAN: Well, I want to thank you for everything you shared with us, your
documents, your photos, and most of all yourself.
HUGHES: Oh, thank you, um-hm.
DISHMAN: Do you have any questions that you want to ask Karen Lanier who's
heading the project or for me?
HUGHES: I don't know where to go from here, I don't know.
LAINER: I have--I have a question. I don't know if you already asked this, but
did you have any mentors or people who guided you when you were just starting out?
HUGHES: Hmm, oh yes, some of the old--older fellows at the--oh, you know, I
learned quite a bit. I know I--one time, I was kicking up straw and stuff, and
one of the older guys was sitting on a bench, I said, "Get your feet out of the
way, old man." He said, "It's, okay," he said, "you keep living," and I've had
it happen to me. (both laugh) It has--
00:16:00
DISHMAN: --I can't--
HUGHES: --smacked me in the face--
DISHMAN: --believe you said that.
HUGHES: Well, he--we knew each other.
DISHMAN: Oh, okay, you were teasing him?
HUGHES: Yeah, we got, "Get your feet out, of there, old man," and I was at the
UK and I heard Billy Linton (??) say, you know, we was getting ready to lift up
a big carpet and thing, I heard him say, "Get back, old man," so I said, "Shh,
you can't be talking to me." (laughs)
DISHMAN: (laughs) I like that.
HUGHES: But he was.
DISHMAN: How old were you then?
HUGHES: In my sixties.
DISHMAN: Yeah?
HUGHES: Yeah, and he said, "Get back, old man," and I said, "Now, wait a
minute," and I--it's--I remember what I did and that slap in the face. I mean,
you know, you have to remember what you're doing as you're going along--
DISHMAN: --yeah.
HUGHES: --because, you know, so it might come back to haunt you, and that's what
happened to me. So what (??) Michael say? I got out of the way. (both laugh) I
didn't like it, but I got out of the way
00:17:00
DISHMAN: --you didn't?
HUGHES: I didn't like it, no, it hurt my feelings but I--
DISHMAN: --oh my goodness.
HUGHES: --hmm, but I couldn't show it.
DISHMAN: So you think of yourself as a young person because it sounds like you
got a young mind anyway though.
HUGHES: I--yes, I do, um-hm.
DISHMAN: That's neat.
HUGHES: Um-hm.
LAINER: Another question that's the other side of that is have you mentored or
trained anybody in the horse industry?
HUGHES: Oh, no, no--
LAINER: --yeah.
HUGHES: --I'm not that sharp, but I've tried to. By me being an alcoholic, I've
tried to--my hand is out--see what I can do. I put nobody down regardless of
what shape they're in or whatever. I can't do that because I come a long ways. I
don't know if I should slip that in or not.
DISHMAN: No, that's--
HUGHES: --that didn't fit--
DISHMAN: --life.
HUGHES: --in. (laughs)
DISHMAN: No, that's life. There was a time when my father first got into the
horse industry and discrimination was rampant in the early sixties.
00:18:00
HUGHES: Oh yeah, um-hm.
DISHMAN: And I knew it stressed it him out, and he drank kind of heavily. He
wasn't an alcoholic, but when he came in, he had to have at least one drink
every day, and to me as a child--
HUGHES: I understand that--
DISHMAN: --I saw that--
HUGHES: --I understand, yeah.
DISHMAN: --he's an alcoholic but--
HUGHES: --but yeah--
DISHMAN: --you know?
HUGHES: --But now--but now a lot of them I run across on the racetrack, they
were functional.
DISHMAN: --yes.
HUGHES: --functional alcoholic. They drank every day, but they never missed,
they never missed a day, never missed a day.
DISHMAN: They're independent?
HUGHES: Um-hm.
DISHMAN: Now I asked you earlier, but I ask you with another question, so I'm
not sure what your answer was. When you went to the different tracks, and we're
talking about a long time ago, did you ever feel any discrimination or have any
issues because of the color of your skin?
HUGHES: Oh, there's one incident I worked for a fellow in California, and he
told me, he said, "You know, what was going" on." He said, "John."
00:19:00You know, because he was--I mean he was fine for--he said, "It's not about me,
it's the system."
DISHMAN: Okay, so he was not black.
HUGHES: No, he's white, the man--
DISHMAN: --right.
HUGHES: --I worked for.
DISHMAN: Oh, okay.
HUGHES: The man I worked for, he just come on out and told me.
DISHMAN: Yeah.
HUGHES: He said, "It's not--it's the system, it's not about me," you know?
DISHMAN: Yes.
HUGHES: Just like at the Keeneland when a man would come in from New York, and
well, we call 'em Hard Boots around, you know the Keeneland place.
DISHMAN: Right.
HUGHES: They'd say, "How long are you going to be here?" and he would say,
"Well, I'm just laying over. I'm on my way to either New York or Florida" or something--
DISHMAN: --right.
HUGHES: --so they wouldn't bother him. But if he said, "Oh, I'm going to be here
a while," they said, "Now your pay scale is not like we pay."
DISHMAN: Whoa.
HUGHES: I mean if you're going to stay here you're going to have to
00:20:00come in line with what we paid.
DISHMAN: Wow.
HUGHES: Now, I did find that out.
DISHMAN: Wow.
HUGHES: I mean you couldn't hand nobody at that stable pen, that big price like
you pay up in New York at Keeneland, no, no. I remember that.
DISHMAN: Do you remember the segregated kitchens?
HUGHES: Yeah, um-hm, yeah, I remember--
DISHMAN: --how did you feel--
HUGHES: --and the grandstand--
DISHMAN: --about that?
HUGHES: --too.
DISHMAN: Oh, I remember the segregated grandstand too. How'd you feel about
those things?
HUGHES: And, phew, what could you do about it? Nothing. I mean we worked in the
same barn.
DISHMAN: I know.
HUGHES: But we go over there and all that, but we just went on, went on. And it
was the same way when I went in the army too.
DISHMAN: Really, I agree.
HUGHES: But we--we managed.
DISHMAN: Okay.
HUGHES: I mean that's the system.
DISHMAN: That's true.
HUGHES: There's nothing you could do with the--about the system, um-hm.
DISHMAN: Okay. Again, thank you so much, I really do appreciate getting to know
you and for your sharing your information with--
00:21:00
HUGHES: I'm not--
DISHMAN: --all of us.
HUGHES: --I'm not finished.
DISHMAN: Oh, I'm--
HUGHES: Yeah.
LAINER: I'm so sorry.
HUGHES: --No I'm (??) (laughs)
LAINER: We just got started, didn't I? I would feel like you were just starting
to talk about some good information.
HUGHES: All you have to do is get wound up, you know--
LAINER: --yeah.
HUGHES: --it's hard to--
DISHMAN: --I agree.
HUGHES: --stop the--I enjoyed--
LAINER: If you--
HUGHES: --this.
DISHMAN: I did.
LAINER: And if you want to do this again--
HUGHES: --no, no--
LAINER: --we can do it again--
HUGHES: --I'm good, I'm good. It's--(both laugh)--I'm a nervous wreck.
LAINER: Oh, you did great.
HUGHES: But I'm--
DISHMAN: You don't seem like--
LAINER:No.
DISHMAN: --it.
HUGHES: Not now I am--
DISHMAN: --okay.
HUGHES: --you-all took that away.
DISHMAN: All right.
HUGHES: Oh Jesus.
LAINER: All right, Mr. Hughes, here's that--
HUGHES: oh, I enjoyed--
LAINER: --form--
HUGHES: --that and--
LAINER: --again if you have anything that you want to restrict access to--
HUGHES: --no, I want you to have everything.
LAINER: --you're good with all of it?
HUGHES: Yeah, I'm good.
LAINER: Okay.
HUGHES: I'm glad I could contribute and be of some kind of help.
DISHMAN: I am too.
HUGHES: --am I saying that right?
DISHMAN: Yes.
LAINER: You are.
HUGHES: It's something I'm--
DISHMAN: Yeah, thank you so much.
HUGHES: Oh, I enjoyed it.
DISHMAN: This is off the record, you look very good for your age and you--I
think you get around well for your age, you know?
00:22:00
LAINER: So he can say--
[End of interview.]
