bare necessities. i've found a new love. well, maybe not a love. but a new interest. horse racing! it's great! i don't know why i've never been. i like horses. i like being outside. i like betting. i have a short attention span. it all ends up to.......laziness. and horse racing. dropped by del mar racetrack for an hour or so (with victor, ana, susan) and walked away with a few bucks in my pocket. i knew nothing about horse racing walking in but after a few handy dandy informational fliers were digested, i was ready to start my betting career. i decided the key to winning is to bet "shows." which means that the horse you pick must place among the top three finishers. typically, a race has nine horses, so if god made all equines equal, you would have at least a thirty-three percent chance of winning. but here's the catch.....god did not make horses, or men for that matter, equal. horses have varying degrees of athletic ability! some are better than others! so if you pick the odds-on favorite horse, it's more than likely that they will finish in the top three, no matter how bad they suck. this strategy is as good as gold in your pocket. better actually, it's much lighter and more portable than gold.



at first, standing by the track, i couldn't tell what the hell was going on. i was impressed by the enormity of the racetrack (one mile equals one lap) but that also made it confusing because i couldn't see where the horses were coming from. luckily, you could see the horses on the conveniently placed big screen tv. there's nothing like trying to pick out your jockey's "silks" from a crowd of brown flesh. greatness. the very first race, we put $10 on our horse--bare necessities--to show. and since he came in a thrilling third, we got $36. thirty six dollars!!!! on an investment of ten! can it get any better? i felt like warren buffet. of course we lost with our next round of bets, but that was because we tried to pick the winner. and as we all know, horses aren't that bright, they never finish exactly as they should. but if one of our horses from that second race had won, we woulda pulled in a cool $100-200 on our five dollar bet. requesto--our horse--almost won, but he/she/it couldn't do better than a close second. next time, i'm just betting show. every time. the season's over now but next year, weekends, i'm recreationing and making dough at the racetrack. i'm gonna make enough to get some box seats and i'll just kick back, sip on my non-alchoholic drink, and watch my money come pounding down the homestretch.