Page 20 - NMHBA Spring 2021

18 New Mexico Horse Breeder
“They come during the (horse) workouts in the morning,” says Winter. “It helps the parents out and gives the kids a place to be and do different activities.”
There is also a “Care Group” of volunteers that provide a plethora of help and services to people in need. This winter, members of the group shoveled snow for the widow of a trainer who had passed away and did the same for a racetrack casino worker who was recovering from surgery. The group also delivers food, sends get well and encouragement cards to people who are sick, and does odd jobs around people’s houses.
During the early years, Chaplain Winter literally took his ministry to the mountain (Ski Apache) on the Mescalero Reservation. A skilled skier, he provided kids from town and the reservation with 10 weeks of skiing lessons along with weekly Sunday church services.
Every race day Winter goes into the jockey’s room and prays for their safety and before the first race of the day meets with the starting gate crew for more prayers. “I call them my Sunday School group,” he says with a laugh.
In normal years (i.e. no pandemic),
the busiest time for Winter is from April through Labor Day when the racing season at the track is in full swing. Horse racing, by nature, is a dangerous sport, especially for jockeys. So, when an injury occurs or a member of the backside community needs help, Winter’s chapel provides financial and spiritual help.
“Through the years, you get to know the jockeys very well and ... most of the time you can tell which ones are struggling,” he says. “When they have an accident and go down, they’re without income and that’s a place we step in and help.”
Financial assistance comes from the chapel’s “benevolent fund.” This year, again because of the pandemic, Winter says the chapel has spent at least $60,000 from the fund to help those in need.
Some of that money went to families who lost jobs or were affected in other ways by the pandemic. Money was used for a food bank and for backpacks for kids. In some cases, the fund was used to cover car payments or pay rent on trailer park spaces and to pay utilities. Money from the fund was used to pay funeral expenses for four individuals.
Apparently good deeds beget generous people.
Thanks to individuals like Trotter, the late Stan Sigman and other race horse owners, the Ruidoso Downs Track chaplaincy is one of the largest and most successful in the country, on a level now with chaplaincies in New York, Kentucky and California.
It’s a testament to the significance of that day when Trotter and Winter first met.
“You never know the relationships that you build, where they’re going to go,” says Winter. Trotter, who four years ago joined Sigman, Narciso (Chicho) Flores and John Andreini, in
a partnership that purchased Ruidoso Downs, has over the years made significant monetary contributions to the local chaplaincy.
“He was the push behind us in the early years,” says Winter.
Johnny Trotter, Stan Sigman and John Andreini, who like Sigman has passed away, donated more than $300,000 to help fund the construction of a new 9,000-square foot chapel that includes an upscale kitchen, the 3,000 square-foot Kid’s Club, a covered playground, covered volleyball court and a prayer garden that overlooks the track. Also, part of the complex are murals depicting Christ’s life from birth to resurrection and a 30-foot tall cross on a hill above the chapel.
When Trotter’s Quarter Horse Hez Our Secret ran second in the 2012 All American Derby, he donated the entire amount the horse earned in the race--more than $100,000--to the Ruidoso chaplaincy.
Trotter’s outstanding stud and Champion runner One Famous Eagle also contributed mightily to the chaplaincy. For several years,
Trotter donated a stud fee for breeding to One Famous Eagle. The fee was then auctioned off during the annual Ruidoso Select Yearling Sale. The auctioned breeding fee brought anywhere from $35,000 to $45,000 annually.
Winter says with Sigman, who died last year, the benevolent fund was “where his heart was.” A noted leader in the wireless communication field, Sigman over the years made several contributions of $30,000 to the chaplaincy.
Horse owners, breeders and members of the track’s jockey club have also helped fund Winter’s ministry.
“We have a very generous group of people who come to the racetrack,” says Winter. “Racing is very labor-intensive work that
is conducive to helping others. They are a community of people who want to help each other. They find that the chapel is the place to go,” with their generosity.
“I guess my forte is matching people that need help with people who want to help,” he said. “I tell them what the need is and out of their generosity they meet that need through our benevolent account.”
That generosity has enabled the chaplaincy, which had a budget of only $12,000 when Winter took it over, to expand and grow in ways that would have been hard to imagine 20 years ago.
“It’s been a real passion of mine to try to help Darrell achieve what he’s doing,” said Trotter. “It’s been a self-rewarding thing for me to see God work through Darrell in that chapel. There’s no telling how many little kids have been introduced to Christ that never would have without that.”
Who knows how many of those kids would have missed out on the message had Winter not received another form of help from the Trotters.
When Chaplain Winter was having trouble getting the kids from the backside to attend his Wednesday night prayer meetings, Trotter
“Being ready and willing to serve a group of people goes a long way in satisfying something within myself as well.”
Darrell during the construction of the Ruidoso Downs Chapel.