IT’S NOT JUST FOOTBALL
When it comes to sports on Thanksgiving Day, football has long held a lease on America’s turkey-shaped heart.
Whether it’s a venerable high-school rivalry game such as Loyola-Calvert Hall or the annual early-afternoon kickoff for the NFL’s Detroit Lions, the sport is as familiar a side dish as stuffing or cranberry sauce.
There are other ways, however, for Marylanders to indulge their sporting appetites. Whether they gather by the thousands to run Turkey Trot races for charity, continue family legacies of watching the thoroughbreds at Laurel Park or squeeze in 18 holes at Balti- Patterson Mill Middle School teacher Natalie Sieracki, back, encourages a smiling Brandon Walker in the 2016 Turkey Trot. more’s municipal golf courses, plenty of people maintain Thanksgiving traditions that have nothing to do with pigskin.
Clark Shaffer will don a fine suit, a tie and a stylish hat on Thursday morning.
But when he leaves his Columbia home, he won’t be headed for a family dinner. Instead, he’ll drive to Laurel Park to catch the first race of the day at 11:25 a.m.
“It’s better than sitting at home, eating too much and watching football,” he said.
His ties to horse racing go back to his great-grandfather, H. Guy Bedwell, who trained Sir Barton, the first winner of what would come to be known as the Triple Crown. Bedwell was an ornery cuss who proudly went