Day Three at the Races

The sun finally came out today, and I forgot to bring my camera to the track. Given my luck with the horses, this figures. So I had to make do with my camera phone (reminding me of what deprivations made up life way back in April 2007). As you can see from the photo above, I have discovered the "sepia" function on the ol' toolbar. I wasn't trying to be extra fancy, it's just that it's a crappy photo, so it needed something. That's the field passing by the grandstand in the opening moments of the ninth race. They reappeared in front of us to finish about two minutes later and, unsurprisingly, the horse I chose, Sugar Shake, was not in front.

Though it hardly seems possible, I did worse today than the previous two days, cashing a ticket only once -- on Premium Wine in the seventh. My dad bet Philharmonic in the fifth, mainly on the theory that his jockey, Mike Luzzi, who was 0 for 60 at the meet, was due. And wouldn't you know it, he won it going away. If you're not a fan of happy stories like that one, witness my experience in the sixth race. I convinced myself that Another Hades was the bet. When I went to the window, he was 8-1. When the race went off, he had been bet down to 3-1. I was feeling pretty good about that. (Sure, my potential payoff was much lower, but there is something to the wisdom-of-crowds theory at the track.) Long, predictable story short, the horse barely lifted a hoof, finishing dead last. In this case, the staggering stupidity of a crowd.

My favorite names today were Moonshiner, because I love the song (Uncle Tupelo's version), and, going against my own rule about run-together names, Artytheonemanparty. I imagine that one would be fun to say if you were a track announcer.

It was a tough day out there, and tomorrow will be tougher -- 12 races, most with large fields, including the Travers, which I wrote about here. First race goes off at 12:45, the last at 7:20. That's a loooooong day at the track, especially if you're ripping up tickets. I'll probably skip the first few to get some writing done. (Not writing for the blog, as if any of you are reading this anyway.)