Page 81 - June 2021

“Don’t be intimidated, you have such wide variety of jobs and there is room to grow.” – Patricia Secrist
change and answered an ad in the newspaper, taking a job as an accounts payable clerk at Ruidoso Downs. When profiled in one of our Lighter Side features in 2016, Reynolds recalled she was offered the position of nominations secretary in addition to working as accounts payable clerk. One summer handling both
jobs was plenty; she became the full-time nominations secretary after that.
Secrist was teaching nursery school until she met her husband, at which point she started helping him in the office of their auto repair shop in Hawaii. That time spent learning the ways of customer service and bookkeeping serve her well in her current position. After moving to California looking for work six and a half years ago, Secrist was hired as a receptionist at Los Alamitos, then transitioned to group sales and booking before being offered the nominations secretary job when the person holding that position retired.
What does a secretary of nominations do, anyway?
Reynolds answered as such: “The job of
the Nominations Secretary is to collect the payments for the stakes races, keep the accounts in balance, and post eligibility lists after the payments are made.”
Secrist elaborated, noting one objective is
to “maintain the eligibility of as many horses as possible to maximize the purses.” That means sending plenty of reminders to owners, whether those reminders come by mail, email, or tele- phone. When a horse is sold, the nominations secretary also contacts the new owner, making
sure that horse can remain eligible for racing. “You have to be organized,” Secrist ob-
served. “Right now, I handle 14 races which means I have to balance and reconcile 14 different bank accounts from races that range from $100,000 to $2 million.”
It also means spending an abundance of time on the phone. “We take payments by check
and credit cards,” Reynolds noted, “so we take the credit card info via phone, we have checks mailed and brought in, we post them, balance everything—and start over the next day.”
There’s more to the job than many people realize. When she isn’t sending or replying
to emails or returning phone calls, Secrist is checking race results and claimings. Or sorting through payments. Or answering questions about eligibility and nominations face-to-face in her office. Or helping with other clerical duties such as simulcast contracts.
You get the idea ... it’s a lot of work.
“A lot of people think we just deposit money and make the purse, but how high would the purse be if we just did that!” Secrist said.
The highs and lows of the job
We asked both Secrist and Reynolds what the favorite, and least favorite parts of their job were.
“I would say helping and interacting with people,” Secrist said. “Everyone has been so nice. I also enjoy working with numbers so when I reconcile and everything matches,
it is rewarding. I also get great satisfaction when the purse money is high. Oh, and watching the workouts!”
Reynolds observed her favorite part is getting to know many of the owners she deals with regularly. “I have made some good friends over the phone—some of whom I have never met!”
Both identified the same factor as the least favorite part of the job: having to contact an owner who failed to make payment on time or had a check returned.
What does the future hold?
Secrist has been working in and around bookkeeping for years now, and thinks that if she were to leave Los Alamitos, she would seek a bookkeeper position. That said, she noted she “would love to retire doing what I am doing!”
Reynolds, meanwhile, actually is preparing for retirement. She’s been preparing her successor, Doris Alvarez, to take over the nominations office full-time.
Parting Words
We asked both ladies what advice they had for women looking to enter the horse racing industry, and what they felt the future held for women in the business.
“Learn from the women who have been there,” Reynolds said. “We have some outstanding women in all fields—owners, trainers, jockeys, executives, and office personnel who have done great jobs and set great examples.”
“As long as we have racing, there will be women!” Secrist said, advising those entering the business, “Don’t be intimidated, you have such wide variety of jobs and there is room to grow.”
“I have made some good friends over the phone—some of whom I have never met!” – Annelle Reynolds
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