Education of a Horseplayer, Part I

[Jim F.]

This probably belongs in another section, but I feel at home here with the same (virtual) faces every day...so here goes...
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HOW I LEARNED TO WAIT UNTIL
THE RACE IS OFFICIAL...

My friend Midge and I used to go to Philadelphia Park on weekends. He was a numbers guy and I'm more of an angle player, so sometimes we use to combine our views into exacta combinations. We'd invested heavily in a particular race one afternoon and we were standing on a bench in front of the grandstand cheering our horses on. Coming down to the wire was one of our big-payoff exacta hook-ups, one, two...until a no-chance horse blew by them and ruined our day. I was crushed. I got down from the bench, walked through the crowd and threw the expensive tickets into a half-filled garbage can. As I meandered back I suddenly heard a roar from the crowd, then Midge's voice shouting to me (Continued...)

[Jim F.]

HOW I LEARNED TO WAIT UNTIL THE
RACE IS OFFICIAL (Continued...)

"Jim," he shouted, "Jim, the top number's flashing! There's an inquiry!" The announcer came on the PA system and boomed something about the jockey's complaint that the winner interfered with his horse. Midge, who'd been coming to the track for years (I was new to the game) was not optimistic since this jockey was the track kvetcher and made more complaints than most. "I'll give it my voodoo", he said suddenly, closed his eyes, and started swaying back and forth murmuring "Take him down...take him down...take him down..." like a Tibetan mantra.
I was beside myself with conflicting emotions. First of all I felt like a complete idiot. If the stews threw out the complaint, no one would know of my gaff and I would've learned my a lesson on the cheap. Despite throwing the tickets away, God help me, I wanted that horse taken down too! (continued...)

[Jim F.]

HOW I LEARNED TO WAIT UNTIL THE
RACE IS OFFICIAL (Continued...)

That's the moment I knew I'd become a degenerate, unrepentant horseplayer. If the winning horse was taken out of the exacta, I'd face the utter embarassment, pain and humiliation of telling my friend I'd thrown away our winning tickets and of course I'd be honor-bound to compensate Midge for half the amout of the sizable payoff. But I wanted to win that exacta! And we did.
Midge had been having a bad week was so ecstatic He failed to notice how pale I'd gotten. "Hey, you go get the money and I'll get get the good beer and some pretzels," he laughed before wandering off. As I walked to the garbage can, the only time I can remember praying harder was when I was in a tiny Cessna, bouncing around like a cork in a raging thunderstorm. St. Jude, the patron saint of Lost Causes has always been one of my favorites. (Continued...)

[Jim F.]

HOW I LEARNED TO WAIT UNTIL THE
RACE IS OFFICIAL (Continued...)

I looked into the garbage can and there they were, lying on top, untouched by the countless scavengers always on the hunt for discarded winning tickets. (Did some twinge of self-preservation keep me from tearing them up as I usually do with losing tickets?) The sunlight glistened off the tickets as I scooped them up -- they were white, and orange and black. More beautiful than any flower.




Coming soon...

HOW I LEARNED TO STOP CHECKING
HORSES IN THE PADDOCK.

[Dave Schwartz]

Excellent! I await the next chapter.

Uh, are there going to be lots of lessons? <G>


Dave Schwartz