Friday, August 29, 2008

Curlin

This bad boy, who never raced as a two year old, became 2007 Horse of the Year and is running in Saturday's Woodward Stakes. It's his Saratoga debut. A beautiful chestnut horse - nothing but muscle and not enough fat to cook a french fry.

Here he is schooling in the paddock on Wednesday. My photo, thank you.

By the way, I smell upset.

Top Choice

Even the best handicapper can slump, missing sure picks and “snakes” as one track security guard calls those ponies lurking behind the favorites and the money only to surge forward and romp home with the purse money. I’ve had a dry spell for the past few days. Fortunately, I recognized the slump and have kept my money in my pocket. It killed me after the day I hit the double and had five picks to follow up with the past two days with no winners.

When John McCain’s VP selection was rumored this morning, I knew it was time to put my money back on the table. I picked Sarah Palin two weeks ago! So I plopped six dollars across the board on Stormy Mirage in the ninth race of a twilight card and watched the pony come home.

I rarely hit the last race. And history is being made.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Morning Work Out

















Stupid Questions

In the security guard training course, we were told that the most frequently asked question would be, “Where is the nearest bathroom?” A big part of my job outside of protecting the million dollar investments known as horses from the clueless public is to smile and answer questions.

  1. While dragging a cooler large enough for a deep sea fishing expedition, balancing enough folding chairs to host a Greek wedding party on top and somehow managing to clutch a Silver Bullet beer can a person headed toward the entrance gates will ask, “Can I get out this way?”

  2. “Where can I place a bet?” Maybe some people expect mutuel windows to be as conveniently located as Las Vegas slot machine found in public bathrooms, at restaurant tables, post office lobbies or even at gas pumps.

  3. Every racing day starts with the National Anthem. Unlike the venue at a ball game however, the track doesn’t have a confined space surrounded by a seated audience waiting for ONE game to start. When the Star Spangle Banner is piped through the PA system not everyone is cognizant of the music. There are times when I barely hear it. Each security guard turns toward the track where a flag flies in the infield. We salute. The milling crowd slowly catches on. People stop walking, conversations cease, consumption halts and most don’t even puff on their cigars. Then there is that one last bewildered person. He looks around, frowns and asks, “What’s going on.?”

  4. When the horses enter the bridal path to make their walk to the track, security guards pull a plastic chain across the pathways. This keeps people from walking right into a horse. Thinking they have plenty of time before the horse gets to the intersection an impatient person asks, “Can I cross?” Frankly horses walk pretty slowly. Freight trains also move slowly. But once the cross gates come down…

  5. “Are those the horses?” Duh.

  6. “Where is the clubhouse?” Let’s try this three story building we are standing next to.

  7. “Where is the track?” I don’t even understand this question. It’s like going to Disney World and asking, “Where’s the mouse?”

  8. “Can I smoke?” Just take a whiff. And the fatter the cigar, the better.

  9. “What?” What do you mean, what?

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Down The Back Stretch

With five days left in the 2008 meet at Saratoga Race Track I thought I'd better get some photos of the place, a little at a time. Start with a time before sunrise.

Grandstand before sunrise.
The carousel.
Horses waiting for breakfast.
A cool morning in August.












Leaving the track after the morning workout.

Monday, August 25, 2008

So He Comes Back...

The next day, the same Korean War Vet comes back and gives me a Boston Red Sox ballcap, which was a nice jesture considering the money I put into his pockets. But I am no fan of the Bean Town Boys of Summer. I'm not much of a baseball follower except I have to give a hugh shout out to the kids from Hawaii who spanked Mexico in the Little League World Series.

Anyway, Jimmy asks for my choices in the twelve race card for Traver's Day in Saratoga. The place is mobbed, people pushing through the horse path as thick as refugees from Georgia and I'm rattling off my picks as Jimmy scribbles them down in his program. I explained they were longshots and throughout the day longshots crossed the wire first. They just weren't my longshots. One such pick paid $179 on a two dollar bet. Moans rolled through in the grandstands when Slambino flew down the track. A sobering gasp of disbelief fell on the crowd of forty thousand when the two dollar superfecta paid $1,523,188.00. This is not a typo.

At the end of the day I was down $14 and I knew Jimmy would want his $12.00 baseball cap back.

Saturday, August 23, 2008

An Expert

The thoroughbreds had just paraded to the track and Sam the Bugle Man had finished playing the familiar call for post time when an elderly gentleman approached me. I noticed his hat embroidered with Korean War Veteran. I offered my hand and thanked him for his service. He smiled. He asked me where I was from and I surprised him when I said Hawaii. Then he asked me if I had any good tips.

“Well, we bombed on the first race, and I had the second place horse in the last. We are going for the number one horse, Tight Storm in the third.” He hurried off to place his bet.

Before the start of the next race he appeared again at my post. His smile was bigger. “I liked that tip,” he beamed.

“Yeah, that one was pretty good. Always play the weather horses.” He had come in first.

“What’s your choice in the next?”

“Not too sure, but this morning I liked Onoitsmymotherinlaw. Number 9”

Again he was off disappearing into the sea of people headed to the rail. I watched the race on the TV monitors in the picnic area. She won. I didn’t have any money on it.

Sure enough at the next race he popped up again. “Can you give me a couple of them in advance?” he asked. “It is a long way from the grandstand to this gate.” It sure is, but when you have a security guard giving you winning choices, it is worth the hike. I rattled off the next two picks. Every morning, I pour over the Pink Sheet, the racing sheet from the Saratogian.

Well, I have the 10 horse in the next race. Captain Sword. I looked down the path to the paddock and pointed to a large gray horse. “Always play the grays. And then I have a long short in the 6th. For the 7th race, another weather horse, Stormy Success.”

He disappeared again, but returned after the seventh race. Captain Sword won nicely, but I apologized for Stormy Success, a longshot I played across the board and won $17.40.

“I played him across the board too. He came in third. I’m lucky in women and horses.” At that point he introduced me to his daughter. Her father had sent her down earlier to find me. But she was looking for a Hawaiian. They both thanked me for making their day at the track enjoyable and profitable and told me they were coming back tomorrow.

All of a sudden, I’m a handicapper.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Too Early

46 degrees yesterday morning. Too cold to put the final finish on the box I have been refinishing. Seems too early to have the leaves turn, but days are growing noticeable shorter and nights cooler. I keep thumbing through the LL Bean catalog and counting the days to Hawaii.

Found this leaf on the "beach" at Moreau Lake where Dad and I took a spin in a rowboat. It was cold when the sun went behind the clouds so I tried my best to zoom the old tub across the lake as quickly as possible. Felt like I was plowing snow uphill the whole way.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Parker Buckley III

The filly’s pace fell into a soft rhythmic drumming on the damp earth. The sun cast long shadows and the morning air still lied undisturbed over the oval track. Parker felt the warmth of the easy workout rise from her neck as they made their way around the Oklahoma Track, in Saratoga. Nice and relaxed, just as the August morning had promised.

As he brought her up, slowing the young horse’s workout she caught a reflective glint off the windshield of passing car. The light exploded in the dark eye of the horse. The high strung horse danced, moving off to the right, crossing her delicate legs in a prance. Parker caught every signal of her irritation - the change in gate, the flicker of her ears, the nod of her head, a muffled snort.

He had seen this many times in his career as a jockey on the small track of the Finger Lakes. With 947 wins to his name he had twice before been thrown, but the injuries never could keep him from the horses he loved. Now working as an exercise rider Parker pulled the filly’s head back with the wet leather reins. The firm but gentle tug was meant to calm the edgy temperament of the thoroughbred.

Instead, the light chestnut horse fought back. She gave a short kick throwing clods of dirt behind her. Then she bolted forward into a quick gallop. For a brief second Parker was aware that he was airborne. The once still air of the morning rippled around him. His body brushed lightly against the flank of his mount. He never remembered hitting the ground, head first.

When Superman fell off his horse, he never walked again. When Parker hit the turf the inside of his head resembled a scrambled egg. As he laid on the damp track, he thought the sky looked remarkably blue, unusual for the month had been particularly rainy. He swore he never seen it so clear. That would be the last thing he’d ever think.

Parker Buckley III died at Albany Medical, never regaining consciousness.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

On Duty

Some security jobs are more glamorous than others. Mine is a highly visible post, the horse crossing leading from the paddock where the jockeys saddle up before parading toward the track. The crossing is at the intersection of the clubhouse gate. Here the mix of patrons runs the gambit. Local and state politicians using the six week meet as an opportunity to press the flesh, and has been TV stars flaunting used reputations in desperate need of a new agent, to CEOs and retired,slightly overweight NFL and NBA athletes to the everyday betting Joe with his slicked-back hair and too much cash crammed in his wallet and far too many Cubans stuffed in his shirt pocket. Usually there’s a woman attached to one arm, wearing a thin dress she has been poured into, regardless of body type, and a topped with a hat with more feathers than Yankee-Doodle Dandy. (Some of these hats look a bird collided with a the front grille of a Buick.)

The downside of my job is that I do work at a horse crossing. And horses have carbon foot prints. It is amusing to watch the expressions on the patrons’ faces when they encounter a horse dropping; none finds it equally amusing to step in it. And unfortunately, although I've never seen a job description, it is my responsibilty to protect property. I assume that means people's shoes.

Yesterday I handed out the first hot tip of the day. As people flocked into the clubhouse I warned, “Watch your step.” A horse had left its calling card in the pathway and managed to string it out across the entire width. There was no going around the mess. For the first half hour I stood in front of the piles and alerted the oblivious to what laid ahead.

I tried my best to mix humor with the disaster. That wasn’t hard. Many wrinkled their noses, hesitated while looking for another way around, then gingerly stepped over. Others never missed a beat. Some stutter-stepped and avoided contact. And a few never heard me or saw me standing in the middle of the path waving a rolled up newspaper. They stepped right in it. "That's for good luck", I'd smile.

Yes, a good security guard should be pretty invisible, but always present.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Violation

The other night sometime between 7:40 and 8:10, I "lost" my phone. By 8:11 whoever "found" it was making phone calls to Garden City, New Jersey. It wasn’t until a little after 10PM that I discovered the missing phone when I went to recharge it for the night. By 11PM I had contacted Verizon to shut the phone down. The creep used 43 minutes.

It wasn’t until last night that I began to feel slightly violated. Someone had my phone and wasn’t honest enough to turn it in to lost and found at the Track. Someone had all my phone numbers of family, friends, business contacts and tenants. Someone had access to photos of Phoenix and Diablo, sunsets in Hawaii and crazy people swimming in Lake George on New Year’s Day. Someone knows when my next doctor’s appointment is. Someone knows what time I get up in the morning.

Fortunately I had my old phone in the basement. The phone is so old that the last time I took it into Verizon for service (microphone went out), the technician wrinkled his nose at it while he dangled it by the attached strap as if it were a dead rat.

With four months to go before my two year contract expires, I hardly want to get a new phone. Prior to the loss, I had only used 40 of my 450 minutes (Yeah, Jose was kind to me; the idiot didn’t call any international numbers.) Based on that usage – or lack there of – I don’t even need a phone, but I run around in a 1989 Jeep Cherokee with 330,000 miles. I like having a phone. Now I have a seven year old phone providing a bit of assurance on my nineteen year old Jeep.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Easy Money

On the first day of the racing season, I struck up a conversation with another security guard. He was from Belmont, doing the meet for the seventh time. The guy who was about as wide and he was tall claimed to have made $30,000 on the ponies last year during the six week meet. He might have, but he never spent the money on a stick of deodorant. Nevertheless he had a friend who is “An Owner” and that gave him an inside to the hot tips coming from the hot walkers, grooms and stable muckers, all who know whose going to win before the horses enter the starting gate.

It’s always those who are friends of “An Owner” who makes money. That is why the barn rats eat cheese and don’t speak English while living in piles of hay and getting their free dental care through BEST, Backstretch Employees Service Team. Meanwhile, the owner wonders why his quarter million dollar investment is 0 for 14 and all his friends smoke fat Cubans cigars.

Anyway, on this first day the first horse in the first race was scratched. Millennium Jet. “Watch for this horse. I got reliable information that this horse is a sure bet. When he comes up again, play him. Easy money.”

As usual I was pouring over the Pink Sheet, selecting my horses for the day’s races. There was Millennium Jet, running in the 6th, the number 12 horse. I pick the horses, not to wager, but to entertain myself throughout the day and to offer friendly selections to those patrons who ask. Believe me they do and I offer my picks with the caveat, “I haven’t hit anything today so don’t come looking for me when you lose. If he wins, I got another pick in the next race.”

Now with an “old” hot tip, I inquired among my security guards how I could get a bet placed, since I wasn’t suppose to while on duty. By the fourth race, I ended up slipping the maintenance guy who cleans up the horse poop a waded up ten. By the fifth, I had two winners, one with a $28.00 pay off, My confidence was running high. “John” had confirmed my bet. I felt connected to the barn rats. I could feel the money burning a hole in my pocket. After all, Millennium Jet was going off ten to one. I was dreaming of dinner at Siro’s and buying a fat cigar.

Then the damn horse scratched.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Half Way

We are half way through this summer’s meet at Saratoga and a little more than half way through summer. That’s depressing, especially since Mother Nature has robbed us of many potentially good summer days. Those lazy, hazy, crazy days have been non- existent. Dog days have stayed off the porch. July went down in the history books tied for tenth place as the wettest month. August has ushered in one deluge after another. Today’s afternoon forecast was sunny and rain, sunny and rain, followed by more sun and rain and later - the same. Every twenty minutes or a five miles change in geographic location brings a new forecast. If it wasn’t in the sixties, you might confuse Upstate New York for the tropics, or at least central Florida. (Well, maybe not.)

My job is to stand in the rain at the horse crossing gate and try to be oblivious to the rivulets of water running down my back under my belt and between my butt cheeks. It has been hard to ignore the rising currents sweeping over my shoes. Occasionally a cooler full of beer floats by, unclaimed by the patrons who abandoned their lawn chairs for the higher and drier ground of the grandstand. Rumor had it that the clubhouse was to be renamed the Ark. The rain has affected attendance, betting and the card (races were cancelled after a portion of the far turn turned into a gulley). Even the nonchalant attitudes of the ponies who escort the thoroughbreds to the starting gate have been tested in the unrelenting rains during the first three weeks of the meet.

Dad commented that the weather reminded him of our trip to Europe where it rained for nearly seventeen days. Yes, but worse because I have to stand in it for hours on end. If it wasn’t for the fact that Dad absconded with a security poncho twenty years ago when he worked as a guard I’d not have rain gear for these monsoons. I was issued one shirt, a pair of pants, a ball cap embroidered with SECURITY and a cheap tin badge that not even Marshall Dillon would have pinned on his one eyed deputy before heading out to rustle up some bad guys.

The big excitement at my post involved a young spinner(Spinners are the guys who continuously go through the turn styles collecting vouchers for whatever made-in-China-giveaways the track is enticing the public with to boost attendance and wagering. Twenty minutes after the gates open anyone in the world can go on Ebay and purchase for twenty bucks the free-with-paid-admission cooler bags, hats, t-shirt, etc. tattooed with the track’s red logo.). The kid had about thirty stadium seats precariously perched on a hand trolley. Just before he reached the exit gate they fell over. He was in the process of picking them up when another patron approached him and asked if he would accept his voucher in exchange for one of the seats. The kid said no. After all he had collected them to sell and a voucher meant he’d have to retrieve another seat.

Meanwhile the guy’s wife reached down behind the kid and made off with two seats. I shook my head in disbelief. I volunteered to watch his loot while he went after her. All was recovered and I avoided a tedious process of filling out any paperwork or even making a report.

Given the financial state of the New York Racing Association I took may pay checks to the bank before they could bounce. I have now paid the balance on my desk. After next week I’ll have my airline ticket, but at $10.00/hour I’ll have to dip into the piggy bank to pay my property taxes in Hawaii.

Friday, August 08, 2008

LL Bean

After months of checking on airfares, I finally found a reasonable fare to Honolulu on United. I snapped it up for October 6. Now I just have to island hop from Oahu to Hawaii’s Big Island.

I hate cold weather and I love Hawaii, but when the fall LL Bean catalog arrives on an August morning when the temperature hugs 60 at day break, I love turning the pages filled with fleece pullovers, Saturday Sweats, River Driver shirts and barn coats. It’s all about marketing. The rich tans, vibrant golds, and deep moss pallets invite me to snuggle into the warmth and comfort of gear I don't need. Yes, I need a Katahdin Iron Works Sweatshirt like I need surf lessons. But honestly, a cool sunny morning dressed in a new pullover makes me feel alive as long as I know I can avoid ten below and a three foot snow drift.

I’ve not wanted to mention this to anyone. I know others have seen it too. There are several maple trees with turning leaves. And the other day I heard someone say we are half way through summer. This might be true in Upstate New York, but not on the west coast of The Big Island.

I’ll keep flipping through the catalog.

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Handicapper

The local newspaper, The Saratogian, is having trouble with their delivery crews. The paper, with declining readership, isn’t helping its case by delivering a morning rag in time for lunch.

During the six week racing reason the paper prints the Pink Sheet, the daily scoop on the horses, the jockeys and trainers as well as the whereabouts of MaryLou Whitney, the socialite who is as old as the dirt on the track. The half dozen of handicappers make their predictions and if I spend more than ten minutes picking my horses for the day I have over analyzed the field.

My technique is simple. I chose weather horses. They have done well during the first two weeks. Dark Sky paid $41.00. Storm on the Track won. Names of people I know also run well. Saratoga Steve, Her Comes Rita. Geography not so well - Ketchican and Gansevoort finished somewhere well behind the leaders.

Since my job gives me a front row seat to the horses and jockeys before they enter the track I am surrounded by serious railbirds. With one eye on their racing forms and the other on the thoroughbreds, they scribble cryptic notes on each pony as they parade by. Some are quite adept at holding two or three newspapers, several pens of different ink colors and a fat cigar. Most are men, but every once in a while a lone woman will ease up to the chain and peer over the top of her glasses at the horses.

They look at the amount of froth in the mouth or behind the hind thighs. They check out the legs, the wrappings and the size of the feet. Some will call out to the jockeys, who rarely acknowledge the crowd unless the voice is familiar.

Once the horses pass, I drop the chain gate and the crowd disperses quicker than rats off a sinking ship. These guys don’t wager simple win place and show. They go for daily doubles, exactas, quinellas and superfectas. Regardless of what happens they return. There is always the next race. The next hot tip.

I’ll always take the grays in the short races. My best day included five wins. On Monday my picks always beat the horses in the upcoming race. I'm lucky it is against the rules to place a bet while in uniform, but I have heard of some guards ditching their hats and shirts in the bushes before strolling to the window to take the seventh horse in the eighth.

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Old Documents

It wasn’t like I wasn’t doing anything during my July hiatus from writing. I refinished my mother’s old sewing machine cabinet. Took the better part of the month. The cabinet houses the machine Mom and Dad purchased for $300 in 1948. That was some chunk of change. The ash veneer didn’t make the cabinet the investment, but it was worth stripping the Shellac finish. A water stain left a heavy dark ring which had penetrated the veneer. Where mom’s forearms rested on the working surface – years of pushing material through the feeder foot – the finish was cracked and flaking.

The extent of my experience in refinishing furniture consists of one old Army filing cabinet found at a church yard sale and picked up for a five dollar donation. Sixty dollars worth of stripper, stain and sandpaper and I had a nice two drawer cabinet with US Army branded to the side. I figured with a bit of patience and a craftsmen’s standard which Mom would have approved, I could tackle the cabinet that has more sentimental value than market. As a little kid I’d crawl under the companion chair. It made a perfect cave-like entrance under the cabinet.

The first challenge - removal of the bottom drawer. It never came out. Some how jammed. After examining the simple track on the other drawers and sliding it in and out, I never could figure out why it was stuck. Mom couldn’t either. She never tried to force it, afraid the thin plywood bottom would give way. After I fiddled with it for some time it accidentally popped it out.

Behind the draw I found several old documents. The first two items were insurance policies for Dad taken out by his mother when he was ten years old. The monthly premium was ten cents. The policy value $144.

I also discovered a W-2 from 1949 where Dad’s annual earnings were $831.21 and the Federal income tax withheld was $19.40. There were a few other documents, but the piece of paper most interesting was torn from a magazine. On the page was a picture of a five room house with garage, floor plan included. The house is the very house Mom and Dad built over fifty years ago. Dad used this page as the only guide. No architectural drawing. The finish product, an exact replica, includes the pine trees and the dead elm in the school house yard. Makes this kind of eerie.

Three weeks later the cabinet is completed. Removed dark water stains. Nice finish. Even reupholstered the chair in faux leather, replacing the original faux leather. And the bottom drawer will never come out again. Stuck.

Monday, August 04, 2008

Conversation

He asked if I would have any interest in a man earning $17,000 a year. The question was posed by one of my twenty-something coworkers with a do-rag tucked up underneath his security cap.
“Hell no,” I snapped at the crazy boy.

“Com’on, Valerie," he whined. "Not even if he was good to you?” He punctuated the jive with an animated low hand swipe across his crotch.

“Shit. No.”

“I thought women wanted to be financially independent and support for themselfs.” (He pronounced the plural of self with the “fs” not the “ves”.)

“Exactly.”

“Why not?”

These are the conversations I am having these days as I pull chains across the bridal path to keep stupid people from getting kicked in the head by a race horse. It was a serious series of questions. “Because at 54, I have my own assets and means of support ,and I don’t want to get involved with a man who can’t suppose himself.”

“I can respect that.” Satisfied with my answer he strolled off to answer a text message on his cell phone, despite the policy that says cell phones usage is not allowed while on duty. Yeah, the immediate attention spans are short too.

Friday, August 01, 2008

Feet

I correctly suspected I’d never make it to 8 PM if I got up at 6 AM and went for my morning run. After standing all afternoon my legs and knees feel pretty stiff. But after a week, the legs are getting stronger and the toes not so tender. I’ve been running around in Chacos for the past several months so when it came to cramming my feet into a pair of black leather steel-toed shoes, purchased fifteen years ago in my former life as a Director for Human Resources with AmeriSteel, the ten little Indians rebelled. (The real question is after all these years why did I still have those shoes? Answer: Remember that trip to Knoxville I didn't tell you about?)

Pay day was yesterday. A few of my co-workers grumbled about the amount of taxes deducted from their hard earned wages. It was a bite that included a chunk to pay for my NY security license. This gave me an opportunity to remind them who to vote for in November. None took the bait to discuss the finer points of Obama and the coming of ObamaNation. Maybe after next week’s paycheck I’ll find it worthwhile to take a trip into town to deposit them in the bank. Meanwhile I’ve just folded and tucked them into the nightstand draw.

Routine is taking place. As a relief person I worked out an informal schedule to cover the crew for breaks. For some reason we had an extra person on the bridal path crossing yesterday so I spent an extra hour down by the restaurant called At The Rail, where it cost $77 for lunch and the guys wear seer sucker suits and smoke fat cigars and the women wear ugliest hats and the skimpiest linen dresses. But their behavior can been just as rude as the low-rollers found in the simulcast area after a day of drinking beers out of their coolers.