Rudy Rios, Founder of the Backstretch Workers Service Team(BEST), left speaks with Paul Ruchames, executive director, center and Nancy Underwood, Saratoga program director at the 30th anniversary of BEST breakfast Thursday July 18 2019 in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Special to the Times Union by Skip Dickstein
"BEST couldn't exist without large community support and staying flexible to meet the ever-changing needs of the backstretch,"
SARATOGA SPRINGS — While horse racing fans lined up waiting to flood the gates of the Saratoga Race Course, across the road past the barns, Juan Torres walked into a free health clinic for backstretch workers to get a bag of fruit.
The 54-year-old from Mexico has been a groom for 10 years. The long hours and hard labor take a toll on his body — hot and cold water stinging his fingers, movements to brush horses straining his shoulders, kneeling to clean hooves hurting his knees, he said.
The first time he visited the clinic a decade ago he had an ear infection. The next time he returned for a colonoscopy. In March, he was rushed from the clinic to Saratoga Hospital for hernia surgery.
"It means a lot because they give us help," said Torres on Thursday inside the clinic run by non-profit organization Backstretch Employee Service Team of NY (BEST).
But physical pain isn't the most difficult part of his job.
"The biggest thing that affects me is that I can't have my family here," he said. He supports his wife, son, daughter, and now two grandchildren at home, and said his son told him recently that money wasn't everything — he would rather have his dad at home.
For the past 30 years, BEST has been meeting the physical, social, and mental health needs of thousands of backstretch workers like Torres at the Aqueduct, Belmont and Saratoga race tracks.
"They are the literal backbone of the industry," said Tom Durkin, retired race announcer honored at BEST's 30 year celebration Thursday. Around 100 supporters at a trackside breakfast burst into applause.
During peak racing season at Saratoga, there are more than 2,000 backstretch workers at the track — almost all foreign workers from Central and South America, many returning every year on seasonal visas. In the past two years under President Donald Trump's administration, it's become harder for employers to get visas to hire foreign workers and less safe for those who are undocumented as federal immigration enforcement increases.
To support workers, BEST runs clinics, provides substance abuse counseling and mental health therapy, offers translation and transportation, and hosts a "sober cafe." The organization also recently started running English lessons and citizenship classes so that eligible workers can become Americans, Executive Director Paul Ruchames said.
The New York Racing Association (NYRA) funds and offers space to BEST on track property — a vital collaboration.
"If you look at farms and restaurants, they don't have access to care like we've been able to provide and to grow the program, so I think the collaboration and the continued support of the backstretch and the industry is really impressive," said Nancy Underwood, BEST's Saratoga Program Director.
It was a worker who originally saw the needs. When Rudy Rios arrived as an exercise rider at the Belmont Race Course from Argentina in 1964, he didn't speak English, hadn't finished high school, and struggled with alcohol addiction, he told the Times Union Thursday.
Rios went through recovery and encouraged by his wife, wanted to help others struggling with alcohol abuse. He went around the barns to connect other workers with treatment. Later that year, he and five other volunteers were helping close to 1,000 people.
After Rios raised $100,000 in partnership with NYRA, BEST was born in 1989. Rios went on to graduate high school at the age of 44, become a U.S. citizen, and retire after 51 years in the horse racing industry.
In 2005, BEST expanded to two health clinics and more programs. The organization's medical director Dr. Alexander Cardiel, a physician at Saratoga Hospital who grew up as a migrant farm worker in California, said working with BEST for the past 12 years has been his way of giving back.
BEST reported that nearly 70 percent of backstretch workers experience at least one nonfatal injury or respiratory illness each year. Saratoga's clinic sees an average of 700 patients a season, staff said. On dark days, when there are no races, the line sometimes stretches out the door.
The most common problems are diabetes and hypertension, said Lucy Mercado-Freund, a licensed practical nurse who also educates workers about nutrition. Workers also suffer injuries — like when a horse bites or steps on a worker — and eye conditions caused by overexposure to dust and sunlight.
BEST helps provide subsidized health and life insurance through Fidelis, but could use more money to pay for medication, Cardiel said.
"If they don't have documents or insurance, we still see them and we make it happen," he said.
Health concerns aren't only physical, though.
"They're not always sick," said Mercado-Freund of the workers served by BEST. "Sometimes they just need to talk to somebody because they're missing family."
Judy Beck, BEST's social worker also licensed by the state to provide psychotherapy, sees at least 100 patients a year, some a dozen times.
They are suffering from depression, anxiety, psycho-social stressors, bipolar and sleep disorders, and grief and loss, Beck said.
"Some of the hardest issues are when a family member in their home country has died — a spouse, a sibling, a child — and they can't get home to bury their loved ones. They can't attend a funeral. They also can't attend weddings and major milestone events," she said.
BEST also still focuses on substance abuse recovery, its original purpose. Workers will turn to substances to cope with issues and then that becomes the problem, said the organization's certified substance abuse counselor Julio Pantoja. BEST uses proven therapy methods, runs a sober house, and hosts an Alcoholics Anonymous program in Spanish open to the community.
Pantoja remembered once when a worker drank rubbing alcohol and was throwing up blood. He rushed the man to the hospital, where he recovered. He didn't see him again after that season, but got a call from the recovered worker two years ago that he was doing well.
"I feel that I made a difference," Pantoja said.
As BEST celebrates 30 years, it plans to keep growing and get more involved with the community, Ruchames said.
"BEST couldn't exist without large community support and staying flexible to meet the ever-changing needs of the backstretch," he said.