It’s a sure bet where Chaplain Randy Weaver can be found seven days a week — at Sam Houston Race Park in northwest Houston, Texas.

Since the racetrack’s opening in 1994, Weaver has ministered to hundreds of track employees, jockeys, groomers, trainers and racing fans. He prays with jockeys every race day and visits them in hospitals when they are injured. He regularly visits the backside and chats with trainers, groomers and riders who must devote 24 hours a day to caring for the horses, even to the point of living at the track.

"The number fluctuates, but there are about 1,000 people on any given morning on the backside," says Weaver, whose western shirts, cowboy hats and Texas-size belt buckles serve as his chaplain’s uniform. "That doesn’t include the betting tellers and the other people employed by the track."

Chaplain Randy Weaver (in water) speaking before a baptism at Sam Houston Race Park.

Cowboy religion
On Sundays at 11 a.m., Weaver converts the Homestretch Café, the "track kitchen," into a church where T-shirts and jeans, straw cowboy hats or baseball caps are the Sunday go-to-meeting clothes. Varnished picnic tables become pews, and worshipers munch on donuts or eat a hearty café breakfast. His wife, Darla, ministers to teens during the sermon portion. A children’s church is held concurrently in a carpeted storeroom. Weaver’s down-home approach and folksy sermons laced with "cowboyisms" pack more than 160 worshipers into the services each week.

"Most people here are not your traditional churchgoers," says Gary Hearen, who is one of several who attend the services even though they have no connection with horse racing. "Randy has a bunch of people going to church that had quit, but he got them back into church."

"Rodeo cowboys who do it as a profession are on the road 48 weeks out of the year," says Weaver. "Most of them don’t have a home church, and the rodeos are held on weekends."

Ann McGovern, Sam Houston Race Park’s vice president of operations, says chaplains are necessary because many track employees rarely have time to find a nearby church.

"Working racehorses is a life," she says. "It is a 24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week job. Animals don’t get put on the shelf on weekends."

True religion
Weaver begins the racetrack workday with prayer over the park’s public address system. On Tuesdays, Weaver and his assistant, John Shumaker, hold a 6 p.m. Bible study and gospel concert at the Homestretch Café that draws about 70 people. At 11 a.m. on Thursdays, they host a lunch for backside employees. They also maintain a clothes closet for employees in need. Weaver said more than $15,000 in benevolence funds, raised by church members and horsemen, went to backside employees last year who needed help with medical bills, emergency trips home or other needs. Darla also ministers to women who seek her out for counseling.

"True religion is taking care of widows and orphans, loving God above everything else," she says. "That’s what we try to do — take care of people and not just quote Scriptures at them."

Betting and religion
Weaver is not defensive in the least that horse racing involves gambling.

"Betting doesn’t preclude bringing Christ to the employees or fans alike," he says. "Where would Jesus be? I believe He would be out on this racetrack telling people how much He loved them and cared about them. Our motto is, ‘Helping people run the race.’ We are here to help people run the race with the emphasis on ‘people.’ "

—Richard Vara, religion writer for the Houston Chronicle in Houston, Texas.

Houston Chronicle Publishing Company © 1999. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.