by Charlene Sharpe, USTA Web Newsroom Senior Correspondent

Charlene Sharpe

Seaford, DE — The days of $500 purses and open pacers winning in 2:00 at Harrington Raceway are long gone. While much has changed at the First State oval, now home to a casino, there is at least one thing that has remained the same. You’ll still find Kathleen Cain manning the phone at the switchboard.

Cain, 88, has answered phones at the racetrack for 45 years.

“They’ve been good to me,” she said. “When you have a good relationship with the people you work with that makes it better.”

Charlene Sharpe photo

Kathleen Cain has answered phones at Harrington Raceway for 45 years.

Cain has been working at the track since her brother-in-law told her of the switchboard opening in 1971.

“They needed somebody and he thought of me,” she said.

Familiar with harness racing — her husband Herbert had horses as did several other family members — she took the job and has been there ever since. In the early days, she managed the track’s three phone lines and inserted the plugs in the proper places when calls came in.

“We used that until they couldn’t get any more parts,” she said.

Cain answered phones, distributed checks and even helped take entries when the race office was busy. She was there when the casino was built and has watched change after change come since. Horsemen have come and gone, purses have increased and race times have dropped.

“It used to be if you had a horse go in 2:00 you had a good one,” she said.

She remembers when purses averaged $500 a race and the track didn’t have a dime to spare. The only reason the track even got a fax machine, she said, was so that it could send a bill to an out of state horseman.

“He was from New Jersey,” she said. “That’s why we got our first fax machine.”

After more than four decades on the job, Cain said she hadn’t planned to come back this year but had been encouraged by her employer.

Patricia Key, the racetrack’s CEO and president, praised Cain for her commitment to the facility.

“Mrs. Cain has been a faithful employee here for many years,” Key said. “She has set the bar for dedication and reliability and her efforts are most genuinely appreciated.”

She’s a favorite among the horsemen as well.

“It’s so nice to go into the office and see a familiar face,” said trainer Pam Polk, who’s been racing at Harrington since the 1970s. “She’s always so pleasant and helpful.”

Cain, who can see the racetrack’s lights from her porch, says in spite of the changes technology has brought to the switchboard she still enjoys her job. That’s because it’s the people she likes most.

“The horsemen have always treated me with respect,” she said. “I like to be around them.”