I took a sip from the cup of coffee I’d bought at the 7-Eleven and puzzled over the third race: ten-thousand-dollar claimers that’d raced against each other for the last three years in mixed fields at three different tracks and each time a different horse had won. I’d seen and written about this type of contest so many times I felt I should know the outcome. “The race is not always to the swift,” wrote Damon Runyon, “but that is the way to bet it.” Except horses are herd animals, obliged to natural pecking orders, which means that a faster horse will often defer to its deemed superior. This is the basis of the concept of class, the crux of class-speed continuum analysis, and why the Plum Variable is a useful handicapping tool, as it automatically sorts fields and adjusts class values pertinent to the track you’re playing. Still, the codes of primodromes such as Santa Anita, Del Mar, Saratoga, and Belmont Park are the hardest to crack because, unlike the mezzodromes and the llamadromes, the quality of competition prevents too many of the entrants in the field from being eliminated.
At a cheap-purse track, with inferior animals of dubious fitness assembled from diverse tracks, speed (the fastest horse) will prevail 90 percent of the time. At a middle-purse track, as the quality of stock and racing conditions improve, the percentage falls to 50. High purse tracks are all about class (algorithmically determined from pedigree, overall record, and average winnings measured against status versus contenders), so I didn’t concern myself with which horse had the best off-track record, neither did I care who was wearing mud caulks, had switched to blinkers or Lasix, or which had the best closing fractions. At the primodrome I ignore Beyer figures and workouts, except as an indication of fitness and form. All things considered, it’s usually the best animal, the dominant-superior of its group, the owner of the highest Plum Variable, that wins these contests, if the break isn’t too bad, if the field isn’t too large, if the trainer doesn’t tell the jockey to go easy, if the meds are right, if it isn’t raining, if if if.
I thought back to the day before at Del Mar satellite. Though I’d lost all thirteen races, I’d not handicapped badly. Most of my horses had hit the board, and the ones that had run out had gotten boxed in or pinched or had bobbled at the start, or the jockey hadn’t switched leads, or the battery in his buzzer was dead down the stretch, or he was hungover or blowing kisses to his sweetheart in the grandstand as he passed. Even when you’re playing and handicapping well you need luck to win.
And I knew I was going to win soon. Bring someone who knows nothing about horses to the track and usually they win. Flip a coin enough times. Bet the number two in every race. You can’t win them all, but you can’t lose them all either.
It was a sunny day in a quiet decaying middle-class neighborhood in the dappled shade of overgrown trees. My radio was off and staring at the third race I felt myself about to have a moment of prescience when someone knocked on my window. Startled, I looked over to see Shelly Hubbard, hank of balmed hair dropped into his face, Racing Form rolled and tucked under his arm, pen riding on his ear.
I wound my window down.
“Where’s the rain, babe?” he said, glancing up at the blue sky.
“In Spain,” I replied.
“I didn’t hear you drive up,” he said.
“Climb on in, son, unless you’re going to clean my windshield. You want to make the first race?”
He climbed on in, some sort of tissue-wrapped fast-food or gas-station sandwich in one hand, a styro cup of coffee in the other. He arranged his Form on the dashboard. He smelled in close quarters of mushrooms on toast.
I pulled out onto the boulevard, careful to observe all the traffic laws except for the feint I made at a squirrel that ran out in front of me. Sunday morning quiet. I turned on the radio and found it tuned to the NPR station and Prairie Home Companion, Hee-Haw for liberals, as my fellow inmate Sturtz liked to call it, so I pushed the buttons until I found an oldies station. Shelly knew the words to every song; he knew the name of the frontman, the history, the songwriter, the B-side, what label it was on. He’d say Chess records or Columbia, A&M or Roulette, Starlites on Peak records, Miracles on Standard Groove. He’d recite numbers, anecdotes, dates. Personally, he admired Brian Wilson, Ricky Nelson, and those doowop kings the Flamingoes. His most valuable record, a mint copy of “Rocket 88,” worth about five thousand dollars, he bought at a garage sale for a quarter. What was notable about the way he listened to music was that he seemed to take no pleasure from it, no singing along or tapping his foot, no snapping of fingers or bobbing of the head. I’d seen him in action on his record-buying circuits many times: his evaluation of a record was based strictly upon authenticity and condition. Possession diminishes passion, as any married person will tell you, or in other words, once something you love becomes your job, it’s not quite as much fun.
We drove along the ocean for a while, the view that draws so many to stay.
“I feel like a turd today,” Shelly said.
“Too many brewskis,” I replied.
“Had about seven more after you left.” He took a bite of his sandwich. “This is what I was wondering last night when I couldn’t sleep. After all those years in the bughouse, do you
