16 Jun 1985, Posted by Scott An Chora in Travelogue, No Comments.
06/16 Southern Ireland
The gentleman that leased us the car was extremely nice. I am naturally suspicious of people who are too nice and I usually create a bit of a buffer until I’ve figured out their motives. We ended up talking a bit over a cup of tea before we departed south. The agent’s nervous habit of looking out the window was distracting. Apparently the local kids play a daily game of cat and mouse where car windows are broken, so he disliked parking the car in front of the office. I could relate after seeing the abused trees in parks. We packed up beer and luncheon meat, bread, along with an assortment of other goodies and headed out to explore the Irish countryside.
Like an unexpected balloon, red, drifting down from above, presenting itself and beckoning us to catch it, as we turned a corner, a red dress stood out against the green hedge groves. She was hitching for a ride. Her request was like an invitation to heaven. “You need a ride where?” I asked and she replied “To a race track, a horse race track.”
As far back as I can remember I loved the horse races. I actually grew up at Santa Anita, a track near my home town of Temple City. It all started when I was about seven or so and was playing in the front yard of Billy Hoffman’s house. His dad asked if I would like to join him and his son to see some horses and requested that I get permission from my parents. I was handed a program and was left to spend the day picking up tickets off the ground of Santa Anita’s infield. Back then all the tickets were of different colors: light green tickets were for combination bets and two dollar bets were red, but I was attracted to the purple ones. After each race I marked down the winners and used it to verify the tickets I had gathered. I discovered a ten dollar ticket to win and place on Cranberry Road in the sixth race. I don’t recall if Road won the race, but it paid me somewhere around sixty eight dollars. I must have counted it at least ten times on the ride back from the track. My dad made me put half of my winnings into a savings account. I used the other half to purchase a king snake, its aquarium and a forty five rpm record player from my cousin Bob. On that day the race track placed its hooks in me and became a joyful obsession. Throughout high school we would ditch class, climb over the fence and partner up with somebody we felt secure with to place our bets. This was so much more exciting than Geometry. There were also numerous father and son days where my dad would used me as an excuse to go himself. So having the unexpected opportunity of spending a day at the horse races was perfect. We drove through the countryside and ended up pulling onto what looked to be a destroyed soccer field. The recent rain and all the parked cars did some damage, this requiring us to be careful where we stepped. I’m sure if we didn’t have our lady in red, we would have with no doubt driven right pass that place, without even realizing what we were missing.
The horse is nature’s ultimate wedding of form and purpose. The race itself is a wedding that frees the jockey from himself and into the moment when a man’s mind coexists with the body of the animal. It is just beautiful. And even though I risk my money in the hope of winning more, the real excitement is in the knowledge of why I place my bet. To handicap. To watch the beauty of the marriage unfold in front of me, confirming that I was right. So I do my homework, review each horse’s conditioning, watch their temperament, the eyes of their handlers and gather up as much information as possible. I was accustomed to a mutual system of betting, where all bets are accumulated to establish the odds. This was my first exposure to a system of haggling and I relished it, as I wandered in and out of the crowd comparing and shopping for a deal.
While in the paddock a dark horse with a long wild mane lookup up at me like a phouka. I place twenty pounds on the nose of that dark horse. I felt as if I had completed my homework and received a good grade. The ticket I held was quickly gaining value. I had solidified the relationship at twenty five to one and now at five minutes to post, the odds had dropped to about seven to one. We climbed up into the stands alongside three elderly gentlemen overlooking the course. I think they had overheard our conversation and realized we weren’t locals, so they introduced us into their conversation with a question. “Who’d ya bet?” I responded that I liked the number six horse. It that appeared to be working well and I had embraced some confidence with the underlay. “Not a chance”, one of them said. “Only the one, the two and the eight horse have a chance in this race” and the three laughed in a way, as if to tell me I was out of my element. I gave them a look back like “We’ll see”.
The flag went up and the horses crawled from the gate and up the hill, counter clock wise, toward the first jump. My horse was in good form and as he made it over the third jump the rest of the field was falling farther and farther behind. My horse was ahead of the pack by at least four furlongs. As he began finishing the last turn and entered the opening of the long stretch, my horse was about five furlongs in front. I turned and gave the elderly gentlemen a smile from ear to ear but they all still had that same “You’ll see” expression. At the top of the stretch my horse could have been turned and forced to walk backward but would still have beaten the others to the wire. But the unexpected happened. The last jump was too much for him. First he refused, then again. The pack was beginning to close in, and then he ate grass and threw the jockey. Or should I say when he threw the jockey and then ate grass. As the rest of the field approached this last jump, every horse did the same with the exception of the one, two and eighth. I have to admit, I was out of my element. Inside information is a valuable commodity, but the excitement and the lessons learned were far more valuable than the twenty pounds I sacrificed. “You just haven’t been around long enough, son” stated that voice in my head.
