Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Bettin' on the Ponies! (I won)

(www.paintracing.com)

YES! I did it. I was at Remington Park with my good friend Niki and her husband Eric last Friday and while Eric rummaged around the casino floor looking for the right slots to play, Niki and I ran straight to the ponies. Actually the quarter horses were running Friday night, and it was a lot of fun. We didn't know what the heck we were doing, so the first two races we just sat in our padded leather seats drinking wine and staring both out the window where we could see the live action, and at the t.v. monitors in front of us so we could see it in a medium we were both more familiar with. Having only been to a few races it still sort of boggles my mind that in just 300 yards the game is over! (16.8 seconds or so if you're into quarter horse racing)

You should have seen us, well me...I was the one screaming like I was at an OU football game. You'd think one of the horses was quarterback Sam Bradford, and I was standing up shouting at him to throw the ball...throw the ball...NOW! Only this time it was RUN! RUN!...of course they're running Jude, they're horses and they're in a race! Running is what they do....suppose it would have been counteractive to scream out STOP STOP! Which is what I wanted to yell at the horses that were beating the pants off of my very first ever bet - I bet $5 on a beautiful horse named "Flashin' the Boys" ONLY because he was being ridden by a girl jockey (Debbie A. Freeman) I wanted to be the supportive fan....She and Flashin' the Boys came in dead last...STOP STOP!!! That's what I wanted to yell, but I didn't.

So, the next several races Niki and I had a plan. It was a good plan too. We have found the way to beat the system...not hard if you think about it. We're not numbers geniuses or anything, we just cover the spread by betting on every horse. No, just kidding - we didn't do that. I bet on one, Niki bet on one and when we won we just split the pot. That was the best way to beat the odds and still have some play in the game as well. Seven horses ran, we bet on two, picked a high and a low horse to be sure and get the better money if possible - but in both subsequent races my horse won (being the favored) and we split the $30.00 which means we were up! It's always best to leave when you're up, so we threw air kisses to the jockeys, thanking them for dinner essentially, and set off to find Eric.

Eric, who has always been a lucky man (got Niki didn't he?) was sitting at the same slot machine he was playing before we left, and he was up over $140 in nickels. We thought our $30 was cool and he's blowing us away by pressing a button over and over again...well, he can't stand up and express himself like we did, and he wasn't sitting on fine Italian leather seats either. He didn't have a glass of wine called "Fat Ass Cab" in his hand, and NO, he wasn't almost getting into a fist-to-cuff fight with a large cowboy type who told Niki and I that we were sitting in his seat - as if. A gentleman would have tipped his hat; apparently this man was from out of town. We let him have his seat, and that's when we ordered the FAT ASS CAB wine in his honor...we ordered him one too, and made sure the waitress told him what the name of the wine was and who it was from. (We could kiss the jockeys for that as well, since we were winners!) LOL

We're going back.

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