Walking In Wuhan

I've been known for having these ideas that I bring up casually and people get excited about. I mentioned in China that it would be a fantastic idea to dress up in Camo and play Risk. Two months later I've got a mustache drawn above my lip with magic marker and I'm sitting across a gameboard from a guy in a Chinese tank helmet.


So at a friend's birthday party last week I mentioned that it would be a fantastic idea to go to the horse track. The few times I've gone -- Ak Sar Ben as a tike and Hollywood Park in LA for a sports writing workshop -- I've had a good time. Well, people got excited, so seven of us headed out to Golden Gate Fields.

After paying $8 for parking I had this exchange:

Shady looking valet: OK, I'll take your car.
Me: Ummm....hmmm... can I just park it myself?
Him: Sure, but you pay for it either way.
Me: I'm OK with that.

We parked, dropped another $6 to get in and finally found ourselves ready to watch the ponies. Most of us were making the minimum $2 bet for a horse to show per race, which translates into the biggest chicken bet possible. Basically, you can bet the favorite right before the betting closes and rest fairly assured that your horse will finish in the top three.

In the second race I bet, I took a horse early on that ended up being the favorite by the time betting closed. The horse won handily and I collected $3.20 on my $2 bet. After missing a couple of my bets, I found myself with $4 left on the $10 voucher that I'd gotten when we arrived. I decided to put $2 each on horses 6 and 7 to show. This was my big bet -- High Solids and Tote's Humdinger respectively for those scoring at home.

When the horses rounded the corner on the stretch, I was already yelling and and slamming my program against the empty seat in front of me. Tote's Humdinger got inched at the finish line to finish second. I was pumped. But what of High Solids? He was close at the finish line for third. The board flashed 'photo finish.'

John sitting next to me held the exact same ticket. I found myself saying, 'come on, come on, come on in my head while we waited for the results. Then I thought to myself, 'is this a situation to pray? Do you pray for a horse to finish third so that you win a bet?' I quickly decided that it is in fact not prudent to pray on the results of horse racing. God has enough on his hands with war, famine and athletic competition.

So we waited and waited. Then finally the results flashed: High Solids finished third. We yelled, whooped and high-fived, scaring the woman a few rows down chain-smoking Marlboros. We'd won big on our last bet of the day and we quickly left to collect our bounty at the counter.

Prize on a $4 bet for picking two horses to show: $5.80.

For the day I finished down $0.40, but I was feeling good. Just another day at the track.