A Day at the Races
Santa Anita was the first track I ever visited.
It was in the early 1980s, I was about eight years old, and my family was on vacation at my grandmother's house in Los Angeles. Grandma Chapel was an ardent horseplayer and track regular fond of saying that she didn't care how much she lost on the ponies because watching them gave her so much pleasure. One day, probably to give my parents a little break, she took me and my younger sister to the racetrack with her. My memory of the afternoon is hazy but happy -- I remember trying to decipher the sans-serif numbers of the past performances in the program, betting the $2 she gave me every race to show, and pressing myself as close to the fence as possible so that I could take in the bright streaking colors of the horses and jockeys as they came down the stretch. What I remember most is that I convinced my sister in one race to bet on a horse that had never won, placed, or showed while I bet another that had placed and showed lots and lots of times. With more than 20 years hindsight, it's obvious that this was a maiden race and I had picked a sucker horse; my sister won $20 on the "loser" I'd touted her. It was a lesson in handicapping and karma.
Last Friday was my second trip to the track, and it was another good one, with a visit to Clocker's Corner to watch workouts ...
Admire thoroughbreds in the morning sun ...
And an afternoon of betting flyers on which I actually won a little money, although some finishes were pretty close ...
I came away liking Santa Anita more than almost any other track I've been to. Despite the size of the place (the physical plant certainly rivals Belmont), I loved that the horses seemed so near no matter where we were, and that the vibe of the place was so lively. "People seem to be having fun here," my racing companion said, and he was right -- Santa Anita was much like Saratoga in that even though the crowd was small and still full of desperate characters, it felt almost festive; there was little of the grimness that seems to pervade Suffolk Downs or Belmont on the typical weekday. Perhaps it was all the sunshine or the well-tended grounds ...
Posted by JC, Feb 28, 2006 10:00 PM
