By TONY TAGLAVORE, Journal Sports
Not long after midnight, the tornado roared.
A tree fell.
And 2-year-old Carly Ortiz was dead.
She had been asleep in her family’s “little trailer,” as Carly’s father, Amaniel, called it.
“In the middle of the night, everything happened,” he remembered.
Four years later, Amaniel still grieves. But time has allowed him to appreciate those who were there when he needed them most.
And appreciate one person, in particular.
“I don’t have no words for how he helped me,” said Amaniel, from Guatemala, in broken English.
“He helped me a lot. I don’t have no words for this guy, all what he done for me and my family.”
“This guy” is Jimmy Sistrunk, better known to pretty much everyone at Louisiana Downs as “Chaplain Jimmy.” For 18 years as the track’s chaplain, he has offered horsemen on the backside —trainers, jockeys, hot walkers and others — the gift of spirituality. In the hours and days after Ortiz’ tragedy, it was a gift that kept on giving.
“He come to visit with me every day,” Ortiz said. “To talk to me. To be with me. He take me to the store. I lost everything. When that happened, I lost everything. Then, I don’t wanna drive. I don’t want to go nowhere. He took me and my wife wherever we needed. To the grocery store. All we had to do, he do for us.”
Chaplain Jimmy sees what he did — and what he does for so many — as part of his calling.
“I had always felt led — really, pulled — toward the mission field,” Chaplain Jimmy said. “I really felt that one day God would take me to a mission field. I always thought it would be across the seas, or in another country. But God brought the mission field to me.”
In the late 1990s, Chaplain Jimmy was helping out with the track’s chaplaincy program, driving an hour each way from his “good job” with a bank in Vivian. When the chaplain left, Jimmy was the popular choice to take over. But the way he saw things, it was someone else’s choice.
Someone high above.
“I tried to make it as difficult as possible, because I wanted to make sure it was God,” Chaplain Jimmy said. “God just kept opening the doors, so finally I went to my boss at the bank. He was a great man. He had racehorses. He said ‘Jimmy, you need to go do what you’re supposed to be doing.’”
Chaplain Jimmy’s full-time work includes giving a daily devotional and prayer, which is heard throughout the barn area. Every race day, an hour before first post, he goes in the jockeys’ room and leads a devotional and prayer. Friday evenings, Chaplain Jimmy conducts a worship service in English and, with help from a translator, Spanish.
“One night at our service, I asked how many nations were represented. There were 13.”
And then there are things like what Chaplain Jimmy did for the Ortiz family, and does for others. Recently, a trainer’s barn burned at his home. He lost some horses. Chaplain Jimmy helped organize a bake sale to raise money.
“The people in the racing industry are some of the most generous people you will ever meet in your life,” Chaplain Jimmy said. “They rally around each other. They give to each other. Whenever one is down, they’re there to help.”
That includes Chaplain Jimmy.
“I don’t work. When you get to do what is your passion, it’s never work. I get the three loves of my life: God, people, and horses. God allows me to have all three, and to work around those three things every day.”
And the hard-working horsemen at Louisiana Downs — many far from home — are thankful for Chaplain Jimmy.
“Every Hispanic on the backside at the racetrack loves Chaplain Jimmy,” Ortiz said, “for all the things he do for us. He do a lot of things for us. If you ask on the backside at the track, everybody loves Chaplain Jimmy.”
And Chaplain Jimmy loves them.
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