Working Different Sides of the Track at Pimlico Joe Miller and Jimmy McCue work in different environments at the same racetrack. McCue, 66, has been a staff photographer at Pimlico Race Course since 1970. Miller, 50, has been the track's equine ambulance driver since 1997, though he has worked there since 1981. They represent the intriguing, underexposed dichotomy of a troubled industry. McCue records the light with his camera; Miller, more often than he would like, hauls away the darkness in his ambulance. When they met, McCue had been at the track for 11 years. Miller was going to work for the trainer Richard Delp. McCue would give Miller photographs of the stable's winning horses. Over time, McCue also gave him tips about photography. For more than 40 years, McCue has taken his place at the winner's circle, snapping pictures of little-known stakes winners and Preakness champions, including three who went on to win the Triple Crown. On Saturday at Pimlico, nine horses are aiming for their moment in the 138th Preakness Stakes, the second race in the Triple Crown series. "I am truly amazed every time the owners and trainers come to the winner's circle, they are as happy as can be," McCue said. I don't care if they won 1,000 races before that, they're ecstatic about the race they just won. He added: "I am at the best end of the business. I'm at the happy end. Miller does not see happy faces. He sees injured animals, distraught owners and shattered dreams. He watches each race from the superintendent's office, a shack a quarter-mile from the winner's circle between the one-quarter and the three-sixteenths poles. The cumulative effect of transporting injured horses has made Miller distance himself emotionally from the thoroughbreds for whom he once cared. "It might be a horse I've hauled off for whatever reason," he said. A couple months later, or six months later, he comes back and runs and wins. I don't pay attention to them. If he's going to take the last ride, I don't want to know who he is. Miller attended elementary school in Fork, Md., with Delp's son, Billy. When Miller needed money for community college tuition, Billy Delp got him a job at his father's stable as a hot walker, and Miller fell in love with horses. He left school after a semester and a half. But after seven years at the track, the long hours were wearing on Miller. "I got tired of working seven days a week," he said. I wanted a job where I could do the things I wanted to do. When Miller heard there might be an opening for an equine ambulance driver, he left Delp's stable. As a hot walker, a groom, a stable foreman and an assistant trainer, Miller had been involved with horses at the most intimate level. As an ambulance driver, he has gone further, seeing them frightened and vulnerable. While McCue regularly captures the good times, the joys and the triumphs of horse racing, Miller transports the heartache. McCue learned to love horses as a boy. He grew up in Pennsylvania, and his parents owned racehorses in Maryland, Drafted by the Army at 20, he became interested in photography while serving in Vietnam. McCue attended photography school and became an instructor during the last five months of his enlistment. After his discharge, McCue accepted a friend's offer to work at Pimlico and other Maryland tracks as part of a team of photographers. Although his turf became the winner's circle and his assignment to help the track and the industry illustrate the glory of racing, McCue has also seen racing's brutal side. "I've seen horses die, and I've seen a few jockeys from time to time die out here," he said. It's horrible, and it happens every once in a while. It's a rough game. Miller and McCue were at the Preakness on May 20, 2006, when the Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro shattered his right hind leg seconds into the race. McCue was at his accustomed position at the wire preparing to record the triumph of racing's next superhorse. "I looked at the number, then looked at program and said, "Oh, my God," " McCue recalled. He quickly made his way to the area where Barbaro was being treated and began shooting pictures. "But I never showed anybody any of them," he said. That's something I would never do; I would never show those images to anybody else. They are in the archives right now, and I'll probably never look at them. Miller went into action with the rescue team. In the 2007 HBO documentary "Barbaro," he can be seen helping situate Barbaro in the ambulance. With one look at the injury, Miller said, he knew that fate had given Barbaro a death sentence. Most horses would have been euthanized on the spot. "If he wasn't a Kentucky Derby winner, it would have been a done deal," Miller said. He and Barbaro's jockey, Edgar Prado, rode in the back of the ambulance from Pimlico to New Bolton Center at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine. After an eight-month effort to save Barbaro, he was euthanized. During a recent phone conversation, McCue was asked to name the most difficult part of his work. He paused and said, "There is none." He added: "I love photography, I love horses, and I love the racetrack. I can truly say I love my job. Miller's relationship with his work is far more complicated. He loves the track and the racing community. But he acknowledged that driving the ambulance had taken an emotional toll. "If I knew then what I know now, I may not have taken the job," he said. You really wouldn't believe some of the things you see. McCue sees happy endings, smiling faces and winner's circles. Miller sees the price often paid to get there. They are horse racing lifers, on opposite sides of the track.