post 365. a day at the races.

the ever-gracious bruce jordan took joe and i out to the races this past monday for a day of fanciness and losing money. i learned a lot about horse racing; i'll fill you in on a few details so that your inaugural trip to the track doesn't end up making you look like a chump.

first thing's first: at the races, they run thoroughbreds. not appaloosas, not chincoteague ponies, not even the missouri fox trotter. thoroughbreds. and get this: all the thoroughbreds racing today come from three horses back in england. if you wanna run a horse here, you have to prove to the racing whoozits your horse is related to the "foundation stallions:" the byerley turk, the darley arabian, or the godolphin barb. ain't horse names great?

joe and i met bruce up in the turf terrace of the clubhouse. since mr. jordan is an owner, we asked questions and took in his knowledge with the eagerness of two guys looking to make squillions of dollars. when you get to the clubhouse, first pick up your program to get the info on all the horses running, their respective owners and jockeys, and all that stuff. then, on the first floor of the clubhouse, find the board with the scratches (the horses that, for some reason or another, have dropped out of the races they were assigned to), and go through each race in you program and cross them out.

then you go to a teller (on the fourth floor of the clubhouse) and get a voucher; joe and i each started with twenty bucks. the voucher is used in the machines like the one mr. jordan in pictured with above. get your program, look at the info on the horses, get the latest odds, and pick - i went with a system of odds and funny horse names. the machines are quite easy to use.

now to bet. on a quick side note, james bond, in diamonds are forever, follows the advice of 'Chicago' O'Brien: "He backed every firm favorite for a place, or 'to show' as his first ticket-hatch told him to call it, and he had somehow made fifteen dollars and some cents by the end of the eighth race and the day's meeting."

this is kinda how joe and i ran, i think; of course, visions of picking the creaky-legged horse out of sympathy and having him win us thousands upon thousands of gold doubloons and bikini-clad women danced in front of us at the start, but as the day progressed and we kept getting our money nickel and dimed and dollared away from us, i know i just tried to bet on sure winners and come out even.

like i said earlier: horse names are great. here are some of the horses i bet on:

chernobyl's hero
stud muffin (trained by the same guy mr. jordan uses)
wally world
lady joanne
funny annie
refined royalty
triple bogey blues
big city sports (more on him later)
typhoon tycoon
extreme supreme
chestoria
jesse's justice
starbase (i mean, mr. d. wayne lukas was helping saddle him...how could you not?)
americanus
questioning
marrouche

then, with your bets in, sit and enjoy the race. maybe some saratoga chips; did you know the potato chip was invented here in saratoga? the waitrons come around and give you a basket of kettle-chips and ranch dressing. tasty as the day is long. and have some saratoga springs water to keep you fresh, why don't you? lunch? dessert? coffee?

now, if you're someone unfancy but know someone fancy like mr. jordan, you might have the opportunity to go down to the paddock. and i'm not talking about the area where wife-beater-ed epsilons sitting on those ugly-looking fold-up picnic chairs while grabbing beer cans from the cooler they got from bank of america for opening a checking account get to look into a fenced-in area where the horses are saddled; i'm talking about the paddock, where someone might say, "ooop - chauncey...look out. that horse almost kicked you." make sure you wear a jacket - note captain kook behind mr. ditmyer and myself above looking like a hayseed.

here in the paddock you get the chance to hobnob with the stars, and take a look at the horses. what? you say sara's surveying sister is looking a little skittish? hmph. won't be placing a bet there.

before the fifth, we were approached by none other than channing hill, the jockey charged with big city sports. mr. hill was, joe and i figured, roughly 12 years old. maybe 8. actually, closer to being 3 months old. he greeted us and shook our hands while waiting for big city sports to be saddled; and big city sports was having none of this silly little saddling business. to say he was skittish is to say w. is having some problems in iraq.

so i bet on big city sports since channing was so charming, and then big city went out and took charge of the track. and faded in the end to come in dead last. poor channing. but, seeing as how he's only a few days old, he's got a full life of racing ahead of him.

my losses? $22.10. not too bad, and in the last few races i was getting some confidence. mr. jordan took us to siro's for a post-race drink; if you're racing at saratoga, you go to siro's afterwards. and boy howdy was the crowd fancy; bronzed women, bronzed fellas in polos and blazers, bronzed waitresses...and a band that schlocked out beatles and ccr covers like barth schlocked out spewy-looking foods on you can't do that on television.

all was well.