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David Foster Wallace, RIP
Reported by Edward Champion, confirmed by the LA Times: David Foster Wallace, the novelist, essayist and humorist best known for his 1996 tome "Infinite Jest," was found dead last night at his home in Claremont, according to the Claremont Police Department. He was 46. This is so sad and senseless. A suicide. I am stunned. To say that Wallace was a literary hero and that his work had a profound effect on how I write, read, think about the world is an understatement. There was a time in my life before racing, when literature and writing were central, when talking...
Posted by JC, Sep 13, 2008 09:35 PM
Readings: Kling
"In former days, if a business man was known to be a horse player, his credit was immediately cut off. The office boy who was caught reading a racing paper was fired on the spot. Nowadays, however, the business man not only plays the races, but owns horses as well, and the office boy gets a raise if he can pick some good tips for the boss." -- From "Stuff About Steeds," by Ken Kling (Maywood, 1941)...
Posted by JC, Jan 3, 2008 07:30 AM
Goodbye, Tom Ainslie
"Richard Carter, a newspaper journalist and author who wrote on crime, medicine and baseball but was best remembered for his books on racetrack handicapping under the pseudonym Tom Ainslie, died last Saturday in New City, N.Y. He was 89" (NY Times). Among the books Carter wrote as Ainslie are "The Compleat Horseplayer" (excerpt), "Ainslie's Encyclopedia of Thoroughbred Handicapping," and "Ainslie's Complete Guide to Thoroughbred Racing," a now classic handicapping primer. "Before him, there was a widespread assumption that the only thing a horseplayer would want to read was a pamphlet with some quickie system in it," said Andrew Beyer of...
Posted by JC, Sep 8, 2007 09:45 AM
Pandora's Box
From one of the new additions to the Railbird library, found at Lyrical Ballad in Saratoga -- which, along with Robin Bledsoe's Cambridge bookshop, keeps me well-stocked in racing books: "The new horseplayer opening Pandora's Box: A Box loaded with disappointment and spirited fun, and always chock full of treasure for lucky guys and dolls." -- From "A Primer for Eastern Racing," by Norman Kisamore (Dodd & Mead, 1963). Note disappointment comes first, ahead of fun and treasure. The game hasn't changed so much in the last 40 years ......
Posted by JC, Aug 26, 2007 08:00 AM
Readings: Hemingway
Hemingway: You go to the races? Interviewer: Yes, occasionally. Hemingway: Then you read the Racing Form.... There you have the true art of fiction. -- Paris Review interview with Ernest Hemingway, 1954...
Posted by JC, May 21, 2007 06:30 PM
Readings: Morvich
The Kentucky Derby, as remembered by Morvich. At length, after long waiting, the Derby hour struck. It was late, nearing five o'clock. But the air was warm, the sun bright. Ah, my friend, how to describe the feeling that animated me as little Al Johnson, my jockey, rode me to the barrier? Beautiful women filled the clubhouse boxes. The stands were densely packed, and ablaze with many colors, for these Kentucky women are not afraid to put on gaiety at a fete. And as we moved along, the track, it could be seen there were dense masses of men packing...
Posted by JC, May 4, 2007 06:00 PM
Readings: Heinz
They were going to the post for the sixth race at Jamaica, two year olds, some making their first starts, to go five and a half furlongs for a purse of four thousand dollars. They were moving slowly down the backstretch toward the gate, some of them cantering, others walking, and in the press box they had stopped their working or their kidding to watch, most of them interested in one horse. "Air Lift," Jim Roach said. "Full brother of Assault." Assault, who won the triple crown ... making this one too, by Bold Venture, himself a Derby winner, out...
Posted by JC, May 26, 2006 08:00 AM
Readings: Drape
"Their horses had gotten here. They had survived bruised hooves, pulled muscles, ulcers, fever -- a medical dictionary worth of ailments -- as well as their own bad races in weekend after weekend of prep races. They were Kentucky Derby horses. "They had earned their yellow workout saddle cloths with their names embroidered on them and a stall beneath the famous twin spires of Churchill Downs. They had a place in the starting gate of what has come to be known as the greatest two minutes in sport. "Their owners and trainers had survived, too. The best and the worst,...
Posted by JC, May 6, 2006 08:00 AM
Readings: Nack
"Pincay thought he had won his first Kentucky Derby. Before him stretched the emptiness of the racetrack. He was in front and handriding, his whip uncocked and at his side. As they all came to the five-sixteenths pole, Turcotte looked ahead and saw Sham and thought he was running very easily and wondered for a moment if he could catch him. Already the move had lasted three-quarters of a mile, and in it Secretariat had run every quarter mile faster than the preceding quarter -- the first in 0:25 1/5, the second around the clubhouse turn in 0:24, the third...
Posted by JC, May 4, 2006 08:45 PM
Readings: White
"What about the first horse I ever bet on? That was in Lexington, Kentucky, where I had gone to seek my fortune in an atmosphere favorable to the competitive spirit. (I had held three or four jobs around New York that winter, but they were prosy things at best and I felt I was losing my fine edge so I got out.) My first horse was a female named Auntie May. She was an odd-looking animal and an eleven-to-one shot, but there was this to be said for her -- she came in first.... Kentucky was lovely that spring. I...
Posted by JC, May 3, 2006 10:50 AM
Readings: Barich II
"Losers walking around with money in their pockets are always dangerous, not to be trusted. Some horse always reaches out and grabs them. In my case it was Plumb Dumb Bandit, sixth race, June 8, five furlongs on the turf. There was something about the way she looked, the feeling I got as she crossed over the main track and planted her hoofs confidently on the turf course. Confidently? How could I be falling into that trap again? On the other hand, how could the mare be going off at thirteen to one? She had three thirds in four starts,...
Posted by JC, Feb 14, 2006 03:50 PM
Readings: Barich I
"All week long I kept winning. It had nothing to do with systems, I was just in touch. When I walked through the grandstand I projected the winner's aura, blue and enticing. Women smiled openly as I passed. I drank good whiskey and ate well. One night I went to a Japanese restaurant and sat at a table opposite Country Joe McDonald, the singer who'd been a fixture at rallies in the sixties. Joe had a new wife with him, and a new baby who refused to sit still and instead threw an order of sushi around the room. A...
Posted by JC, Jan 18, 2006 07:00 AM
Readings: Palmer
"The Daily Racing Form's poll of experts -- and mostly genuine experts, too -- picked Aunt Jinny as the best two-year-old filly of the year. This was a satisfaction, because she was bred, owned and trained by Duval Headley, about whom, now that the years have dimmed the performance, I am going to tell you a story. I hope it doesn't get him in trouble....
Posted by JC, Nov 22, 2005 04:30 PM
Readings: Bailey
"Horses and racing, by their very nature, evoke strong emotions. "When you are a fan, you shake, you shout, you do everything you can to urge your horse home first. When you are part of the sport, you shake and shout for a very different reason. Much of the time, you want to scream in frustration. "Racing, it pains me to say, is far from reaching its potential. It is, in many respects, an ailing industry plagued by infighting, backward thinking and overall lack of vision. "This was clear to me as I served three-plus terms as president of the...
Posted by JC, Oct 15, 2005 10:00 PM
Readings: Simpson
"How many times during your gambling years have you been told 'you'll never beat the bookies' or 'win today, give them it all back tomorrow'? Thousands of times I'd wager. But who are these people who tell you this? I'll tell you. They are exactly like some of those horses I've been on about -- the one paced plodders of life. They have no success, courage, or sense of adventure themselves and get their kicks by telling you how wrong you have been and how the whole world is really a massive conspiracy against the ordinary little working man. Dump...
Posted by JC, Sep 22, 2005 07:00 AM
Readings: Ainslie
"Successful horse playing is a solitary existence. The less solitary it gets, the less successful it gets. If you make the error of getting into social relations with the dreamers, grifters, angle shooters, alleged 'insiders,' and crack-brained theorists who clutter up the track, you can't concentrate on your work because of the din. So you keep to yourself. It gets lonesome. I like money, but not enough to stay lonesome all year around....
Posted by JC, Jul 19, 2005 05:30 PM
Readings: Haydn
"When they are ready, the bell is rung a second time, and at the first stroke they ride off at once. Whoever is the first to traverse the circle of 2 miles and return to the platform from which they started receives the prize. In the first heat there were 3 riders and they had to go around the circle twice without stopping. They did this double course in 5 minutes ... No stranger would believe this unless they had seen it themselves....
Posted by JC, Jul 12, 2005 05:40 PM
Readings: Nack
"Whatever the encouraging indicators ... those signs of progress are of minor import compared with the elephant in racing's living room, around which most everyone steps gingerly in various states of denial: drugs at the track." -- From "My Turf," by William Nack...
Posted by JC, Jul 5, 2005 10:12 AM
Readings: Alexander
"The Old Man was running at last like the champion he had always been and he was gaining, no longer inch by inch but foot by foot, and Yacza, who must have thought it was over at the quarter pole, suddenly discovered it had just begun and his whip went down on Iron Peg's dark bay hide to sting him into the realization that he was no longer playing with the boys he had beaten by six and seven and thirteen lengths, but with the men now; specifically, with the greatest Old Man of them all. "The daffodil-yellow and smoke-gray...
Posted by JC, Apr 18, 2005 08:00 PM
Readings: First Bet
"Just as the first way you tell a joke is the right way, the first bet you make is made your way. It's how you're meant to bet, before you learn how you're supposed to bet. You spend the rest of your life trying to recapture it. Or shake it." -- From "Getaway Days," by Brendan Boyd...
Posted by JC, Mar 24, 2005 10:50 AM
More Reading
Left at the Gate digs up a must-read Charles Bukowski racetrack story. --- Interested in handicapping a different kind of race? The Complete Review is offering a "Punter's Guide" to the first Man Booker International Prize....
Posted by JC, Feb 23, 2005 09:15 AM
Hunter S. Thompson, Racing Journalist
Racing has always inspired great writing; it can be credited with inspiring gonzo journalism as well. On assignment in Louisville for the 1970 Kentucky Derby, Hunter Thompson, who killed himself at his home on Sunday, was stricken with a bad case of writer's block: "I'd blown my mind, couldn't work," he said in an interview. "So finally I just started jerking pages out of my notebook and numbering them and sending them to the printer. I was sure it was the last article I was ever going to do for anybody." That would probably be true for most writers, but...
Posted by JC, Feb 22, 2005 11:05 AM
Readings: Runyon II
Say, have they turned back the pages Back to the past once more? Back to the racin' ages An' a Derby out of the yore? Say, don't tell me I'm daffy, Ain't that the same ol' grin? Why, it's that handy Guy named Sande, Bootin'a winner in!...
Posted by JC, Jan 27, 2005 10:25 AM
Readings: Runyon I
For forty years he's followed the track And played them hosses to Helenback And they ain't a thing he shouldn't know, that bloke. So I sez to him, "I want advice On beating this dodge at a decent price. And what have you got to tell me, old soak?" "Well, son," he sez, "I've bet and won, And I've bet and lost, and when all is done I'm sure of one thing -- and only one -- All hawss players must die broke!"...
Posted by JC, Jan 22, 2005 02:00 PM
Readings: Liebling
"The second dodge of the Bite was quite classic. Early in life his back was broken during a Tornado at his place of nativity down South, notoriously the home of high winds, viz., Gainesville, Georgia. Nobody ever had such a magnificently large Hunch as the Bite believe me. "And be assured the Bite made the Hunchback Business pay him better than it had Lou Chaney, who played Quasimodo in the silent films. He made a play for the lady Horse Players only. He bought two suits a year, one for the summer and one for the chilly days of autumn,...
Posted by JC, Jan 8, 2005 11:25 AM
Readings: Conley
"After one of Slew's three losses, his jockey, Jean Cruguet, bitched to the press about him: 'I told those people he wasn't ready for the race after beating four bums going seven furlongs. I told them he wouldn't beat Dr. Patches.' Cruguet never rode Slew again. "The jockey who replaced him, Angel Cordero, had been begging for the ride for nearly two years, ever since Slew beat his horse, For the Moment, in the Champagne Stakes. Cordero and his mounts had lost to Slew on many occasions, so he was familiar with Slew's intimidating style, the way he stared down...
Posted by JC, Dec 14, 2004 04:40 AM
Readings: Horse Crazy
"Sam loved horses first and nothing else a close second. All day he thought of them, and talked about them if he came across an interested listener. But not by the domestic fireside where the topic was taboo. In fact, for the sake of peace at home, Sam soft-pedaled his talk, kept his thoughts to himself, and finally gave up going to the races except on Saturdays and Sundays. "One day, when he was going through a department store, a salesman at the hat counter said to him, 'Thinking of buying a hat, mister? We have a new shipment in....
Posted by JC, Nov 28, 2004 11:27 AM
Readings: Calling Lady Ellsworth
"George B. 'Brownie' Leach, general manager of the Keeneland Sales Company, tells of a horse lover who also had a fondness for bourbon. The gentleman was particularly fond of a mare named Lady Ellsworth, and the more he thought and talked about her, the better he liked her. At two a.m. one morning he called the farm and convinced the sleepy owner that he wanted to talk to Lady Ellsworth. The owner finally convinced the caller that she could not be roused at that late hour. Next morning, feeling a bit contrite, Lady Ellsworth's admirer again called the farm, apologizing....
Posted by JC, Nov 21, 2004 10:00 PM
Readings: Veeck II
"The Racing Form is a mass of arcane figures, meaningless to the uninitiated but crammed full of information for the aficionado. To a greater or lesser degree, the regular horseplayer believes that somewhere in those figures lies the secret of success. Never mind that the variables in each race are endless; never mind that the horses below a certain class are so inconsistent as to turn past form into the chanciest of guides; never mind that racing luck is a factor which overhangs it all. That's the lure of it. That's the terrible grip it has over him. Luck itself...
Posted by JC, Nov 14, 2004 07:00 PM
Readings: Veeck I
"Connie Hendricks and her husband were former rodeo stars who have carved out a very successful new career for themselves by opening up a spa for neurotic racehorses. Yes, you did hear me right. Neurotic horses. Their system was to take problem horses and reschool them, from the bottom up, through tender loving care. No, I am not kidding you. A patient named Fleeting Thought, who had become so terrified at the sight of a racetrack that he would throw himself over backward and roll around in the dirt, had returned to the races earlier in the month and romped...
Posted by JC, Nov 10, 2004 06:55 AM
Maxims of Pittsburgh Phil
A good jockey, a good horse, a good bet. A poor jockey, a good horse, a moderate bet. A good horse, a moderate jockey, a moderate bet. A man who plays the races successfully must have opinions of his own and the strength to stick to them no matter what he hears. Successful handicappers know every detail in regard to the horses upon which they are intending to place their money....
Posted by JC, Jul 1, 2004 07:00 AM
