am Grossman's horn is not magic, but it unleashes powerful forces. Nine times a day, he steps up to a microphone and plays "The Call to the Post," the traditional tune that signals the start of each race held at the horse tracks. His appearance is brief and soon forgotten by the excited spectators whose yells and curses grow as the thoroughbreds circle the track, stomping towards the finish line.

But Grossman always comes back. He is the official bugler of the New York Racing Association and, for the last ten years, he has been the one person in charge of keeping an old tradition alive in the area racetracks.

"I have a part, my small part," Grossman said, "which has been a tradition in racing for 150 years."

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This makes Grossman, 37, feel proud. "There is a handful of jobs that you think you would never be the guy who got them," he said, "like the organist at the Yankee Stadium, or the guy who changes the scoreboard at Fenway Park. There is only one bugler that plays at the premier track."

Dressed in a long red coat, white breeches, black boots and a top hat with a multicolored feather on the side, Grossman carries a 51-inch silver-plated brass coach horn, also called a post horn. (See "Why Coach Horn?") The horn is basically a straight tube that ends in a bell, tuned in the B-flat note, with no valves. The bugler plays different notes by controlling the speed of the air and tightening and loosening his lips.

hen there were no live television broadcasts in the racetracks, the main function of the bugler was to let people know that the horses were coming out to the track and that the race was ready to start.

Nowadays, the job is more symbolic. Spectators and bettors may not even be on the stands; they can watch the races on dozens of screens inside the racetrack complex or in off-track betting agencies all over the world. "They know where the horses are," Grossman said.

This symbolism can be hard to sustain in winter, when the bugler stands on a platform in front of the naked stands while everyone except the jockeys, assistants and the horses is inside.

"It's really easy if it's 75 degrees with no wind, clear skies. It's a very easy job," he said. "Sometimes we have inclement weather, and it's very hard. Most of the winter it's very difficult."

But Grossman gets to play the horn throughout the year, as the races move between the Belmont, Saratoga and Aqueduct tracks in different seasons. In the summer, he entertains the spectators, plays music on request around the stands and poses for photographs. "People seem fascinated with this," he said, "particularly kids."

etting a job that he likes so much was not easy, according to Grossman, who holds a major in Studio Music and Jazz from the University of Miami and a teaching degree from Long Island University. He had to pass three auditions. The job was open, he said, because the previous bugler got lucky in the races. "He made a big bet and he quit," Grossman said.

If he had not gotten the job, he said, he would probably never have gone to the racetrack. When he is not a bugler, Grossman, who is married with two sons, teaches music lessons to children and plays in a Long Island rock band called Full House. He has been playing the trumpet for 31 years and has 12 different wind instruments at home.

But five days a week, every half hour or so from 11 a.m. to 4.30 p.m., Grossman plays the same old tune.

On a recent cold February afternoon, he was ready to go home after playing "The Call" in front of the microphone for the ninth time that day. As he waited for his moment, he blew on the horn's mouthpiece, detached from the instrument's body, to warm up his muscles and his face. Once the horses were ready to go, he announced, "Here comes the bugler," and played the tune that unleashed the beasts. He had done his part. Then it was the time for the bettors to yell, curse and tear the losing tickets apart.