Be accountable when collecting tracks
Here are some notes about horse racing vacations.
Live horse racetracks are more enjoyable to collect than baseball parks or any other athletic venues. One reason for that is the scenery. Another is history, as there are many old tracks; and the great old places are usually near interesting parts of the world. Another reason why horse racetracks make excellent destinations for road trips is because of the comfort zone. The same people are in every race track in America, the guy who just missed a thousand bucks by an inch because of an incompetent ride, the one who screams the loudest with two bucks to show, the people who lost because somebody conspired to cheat him or her.
The prize pieces in my horse racetrack collection are Oaklawn, Del Mar, Saratoga, Keeneland, Churchill Downs, Santa Anita, Belmont, Los Alamitos, Lone Star, Hialeah (which is now nothing), and the race course in York, England, where everybody stays long after the races to eat and drink.
Scenery can get relative fast. The San Gabriel Mountains above the backside at Santa Anita, while inspirational when you're even, are invisible when you're down five hundred.
During a road trip to Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark., which is the smallest national park in the country, and where some still consider the water to contain magical or spiritual healing powers, I was handed a towel at a mineral bath by an old male attendant who said he had known Al Capone. Hot Springs used to have wide open gambling, slots right at the street curbs. When Chicago started shooting at Capone, he retired ungracefully to his Hot Springs manor to rest up and try some easier long shots, so to speak. The old guy working in the mineral bath house had arms the size of wrists and gave me a 45-1 shot that I didn't play, one that won by leaps and bounds.
Another time I lost every penny to which I had access at Oaklawn, also every denomination of currency on up from the one-cent piece.
There were numerous toll roads to negotiate on the way home.
At the first stop, I sold my spare tire to a passing motorist for $20, otherwise I would have had to drive the back roads and might just now be rolling in.
Del Mar is where the surf meets the turf, and also where the plastic meets the ATM.
Bing Crosby helped to build this place to get away from all those clods in L.A. He and his friends used to sing and drink the nights away on the hill behind the place.
I have been to Del Mar twice and cannot recall having cashed a ticket.
Some places don't fit your eye.
Del Mar doesn't fit my debit card.
Every horse gives the impression of being able to win every race at Del Mar.
As the evil Ben Johnson said, sort of, in the fascinating movie "One-Eyed Jacks" that was directed, and directed, and directed by Marlon Brando, (it was a little long): "Will somebody make that stinking ocean shut up."
Hialeah was where they filmed the movie based on a novel I wrote. The book was "Good Vibes," the movie, "Let It Ride." It was about a horseplayer who couldn't lose, a fantasy, obviously.
The motion picture was directed by a man who had directed the soft drink commercial during which Michael Jackson's hair caught fire.
The day before filming started, the cast went to a dog track to get in a gambling frame of mind. Before most races, the owner of the doggy joint, an older woman who looked something like a flamingo, all bony and pink, seemed to give race tips to the star of the film, Richard Dreyfuss. He won. The old woman never spoke to me and I lost big.
Here's a multi-horse track story for the serious collector.
One afternoon, a friend and I lost two painful photo finishes at Santa Anita, then got in his old Cadillac convertible and raced across town to Los Alamitos, the quarter horse venue, to get our money back that night. Los Alamitos will make most anybody feel young again; or did that evening, as the average age in the grandstand appeared to have been right around 98.6. Who do you like? Who do you like? WHO DO YOU LIKE?
We lost two more photo finishes, four on the day by a total of about six inches, surely a world record.
When last I was at Keeneland, I got a restaurant tip from a friend and wound up driving an hour and a half into the deep woods to a place where they served the pie first, with lemon peel finely shaved and stirred right in, the point being, the main dinner itself was so substantial, nobody used to have room for the pie.
It was like being drunk on calories.
The narrow roads had stooped shoulders.
Queasy with fullness, I had to drive slowly with my head out of the window, like a dog, and slept about an hour before sharing a box the next day at the races with a fancy lawyer, who kept asking if I needed to see a doctor. Exhaustion can precede hallucination and can make a person bet $50 exacta boxes on the first two favorites in cheap races.
Each turning of the year, I sit down and review my racing notes.
The numbers for 2008 are similar to those of the past as concerns road trips to tracks.
Pure vacations to the horse races can get costly.
Working vacations aren't so bad, consult an accountant.
Write to Jay at jaycronley@yahoo.com.
