Wills Park: Where the Horses Run

Lyrics

Saturday morning, May.
Quarter to eight.
The air's still got that cool sixty-eight degree bite.
Lining the gravel lot, the aluminum six-horse goosenecks, parked nose to tail.
You can smell it before you see it.
That mix of fresh pine straw from the mulch beds,
saddle leather, and the low hum of diesel from an idling truck.
The whole day is waiting to happen right here.

And over the rise, you can hear it.
The clean crack of a bat from the ball fields.
Little league chatter, a mom yelling from the bleachers.
The slow, steady groan of the playground swings just starting their day.
It all spills together.
No fences between 'em.
Just one big lung for the east side of town.

Yeah, the white wooden railings and the soft, raked sand.
This is the engine, the heart of the land.
That steady rhythm, the hoofbeats and leather.
This is Wills Park, pulling us all together.
This is where the horses run.

A girl on a grey, her back straight as a board.
Been up since five, probably.
Just her and the horse speaking a language nobody else hears.
The quiet focus before the announcer calls her number.
This isn't a hobby.
It's the work week starts on a Saturday, right here.

The white wooden railings and the soft, raked sand.
This is the engine, the heart of the land.
That steady rhythm, the hoofbeats and leather.
This is Wills Park, pulling us all together.
This is where the horses run.

Tommy Charles said it back in 2018.
This place has a pulse.
They say there’s an old cinder block footing buried under the main ring.
From the eighties.
Never dug it up.
Just covered it with new sand.
History holding up the show.

The sun's over the pines now.
Smell the leather.
Hear the sand.
Yeah. Pulling us all together.
They still run here.