Horse @ MindSay

It was a hot summer night in the city. It was Weds June 25th, 2008 when myself and three friends traveled north to see and interact with (gamble on) live thoroughbred horse racing at the Woodbine Racetrack. 

 

At 6:30 pm we entered the racetrack and hurried upstairs to the popular Champions patio - we were desperate to get what we assumed would be the last available outdoor seating... only to discover the well appointed patio was completely deserted. My group sat together quietly making bets and perusing the menu in the final minutes before the first race.

Lately I've been playing a horse race game on the computer, and I've been dreaming about visiting the track again - you see I think I've developed this sport's perfect betting strategy.

I pick a good horse (good odds) with an average jockey (good win rate) then i pick a slower horse (weaker odds) with a great jockey (very high win rate). Let's call these horses #1 and #2.  When I stand at the betting window I say, '...one dollar exactor box bet, horse #1 and #2'. This means that it doesn't matter which horse comes in first or second (its essentially two bets) and because its a $1 bet I only pay $2.00 total. The value here is the exactor combination is always difficult to win and therefore pays large $$. The $1 box bet exactor is a cheap ticket to a big payout.

 

It was somewhat deflating to find the racetrack deserted. After interacting with the strange cast of characters on the Get Sulky.com harness racing fan site, I was looking forward to meeting some of the real folks who frequent these Ontario racetracks.

 

 
The Ontario Harness Horse Association was formed on the first day of February 1961 to represent Ontario harness horsemen and horsewomen in negotiations of purses, racing conditions. They handle all matters affecting the racing industry with the tracks, Standardbred Canada, the Ontario Racing Commission, and the Provincial and Federal governments. Here's the Ontario Harness Racing lens on Squidoo.

 

Harness Racing is the third largest agricultural sector in Ontario, in terms of expenditure. This agriculture based industry helps to increase and diversify tourism. Horse racing generates well over $1 billion dollars annually in the province. On a per dollar basis, every dollar of expenditure results in $1.22 in wages, interest, rent and profits. Ontario's horse racing industry generates over 17,000 jobs, many of which are in rural areas.

 

 

Today on our afternoon break, one of Sacramento's mounted police was in the area and was sauntering on past.  Seeing that some of us (okay, I was one of them) were captivated by the beautiful beastie, he stopped to chat with us.  A couple of us got up and stroked the horse.  He liked the attention and licked my hand and butted his snout against me.

Shortly after the pair moved on, I received a text message from Lorelei, in which she stated that our divorce was now official and that she'd be sending me my copies of the paperwork soon.  My reply was, "A horse just licked me!"

Followed a minute later by, "Or was that an inappropriate response?"

Apparently not, because she wrote back and said she literally burst out laughing when she read that.

I'm weird... but in a good way.

I got bit by a horse today.


I know, I know.  'Emily, you live in New York City'.  'Emily, where did you find a horse?'.  Natural thoughts.  But there, on the corner of Broadway and Bleeker (two famous, VERY New York streets which is not a natural horse habitat), on my way to help Emily G. dye 130 shirts for the impending Relay for Life, I saw 2 policemen on their horses just straight chillin', and I, the animal lover went over to say hi.  2 more horses joined us, overcome with temptation I asked the cop closest to me if I could say hi, he obliges, the horse obliges and is nice to me and my scratches.  Then he nudges me, and then CHOMP.

Okay, it wasn't a chomp.  There was no blood, and I have a very minor scratch where the tooth grazed my finger.

But that's what happened in my little world today.


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also, apparently while I was at Emily's for 5 or more hours dyeing t-shirts in her bathtub, it rained.  And as I walked from the subway to my apartment, I realized it smelled like summer rain.

And there aren't words for how much I love that smell.

 

I really don't know where to start. That was never my strong point. Ya know, they say “It's not the caboose that killed 'em, it was the first damn car.” So first words, have at me! And as far as a segway goes, I can use one just about as good as I can spell it so I'm pretty well SOL there. Insert transition (what a great start). Anyway, I guess he kinda killed the damn thing in the first place but that gives no entitlement to it (nor anyone for that matter) to tell him there's no hope. There's always hope—at least 'til the soul leaves the body and as far as I'm concerned, as long as there was indeed a soul in the first place, then it hasn't gone anywhere far yet. At least not too far that it can't be recaptured in a flask and downed before the night even begins. Is it possible to get drunk off the soul? Cause I know you can get sick off love. Either way, you're bound to have a nasty hangover the next day with the memories making you the sickest of all. And this is worse than any vodka hangover. At least you can control what passes in front of your nose or what dribbles down your chin; there's no controlling what trickles through your mind—maybe unless you're a master of self-control, which apparently he's not. So back to this horse: It was always a race to the finish— no, I take that back. It was a race to be finished. With what, you ask, I do not know. So I must ask myself, can something be finished that really was never started? Take this race for example: In sync with the starting shot, they were out of the gates. I really can't be too sure if they weren't guilty of a false start, but there are things he's more guilty of than that so we'll just brush that under the rug for now...kinda like a skeleton in a closet but not quite as likely to come back and haunt him. And we could always resort to a photo finish but photos only provide evidence and a means of producing shame over and over. So we'll give 'em the benefit of the doubt and let 'em slide. It really doesn't matter anyway, cause they were down three strides out. I'm not sure I believe the saying “the bigger they are the harder they fall.” It's more like “the higher they are, the harder they fall.” Doesn't that make more sense? Especially since the jockey was in worse shape than the horse. The horse just might have been dead but the jockey was alive without something. Sometimes he wonders if it wasn't that shot that killed it. It was definitely an easier way out of the race. But he's not gonna be the first to scream suicide. That had been an option before but we won't get into that. It was definitely an easier way out of inflicting pain upon him at point blank range. But he's not gonna be the first to scream coward. There is one thing he could scream over and over again. But he won't. He'll keep it bottled up in his mind with the sickening memories. And he'll keep it out of his mouth as long as it's dry.

To the victor go the satisfaction. So wake up and answer me this: are you satisfied? And I'll stop.

I am posting this on my blog and suggested it to the news also.  Last time I suggested a pretty important news bit, it got over ruled and something about the catchest catch phrase was put in place.  Since Mindsay doesn't like putting important news up on their homepage this is going on my blog also!

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