My father a compulsive gambler, big on sports betting and card games.
My mom\'s father, Grandpa Spike, an old fashioned bookie, half the year in
Brooklyn, half the year in Miami Beach.
Bred top and bottom, I didn\'t stand much chance of avoiding the inevitable.
Tough game. For every glorious day at the Spa, there\'s five miserable days in the
dead of winter in Ozone Park, pitch black in the parking lot at 4:40 in the
afternoon, the speckled sea birds fighting over the last part of your half
cooked/half frozen pretzel.
In days of old, closing day at Saratoga was always Sunday; Belmont would reopen
the next Wednesday. The advance edition of the DRF would hit the sidewalk on
Kings Highway at E 16th Street in Brooklyn on Tuesday morning at about 1:30 AM. I
would stand with a look which was probably borderline homicidal waiting for the
plastic around the bundle to be cut.
Its a Sunday at Belmont Park, and there\'s been a heavy rain shower in the middle
of the card; the sandy oval has been turned to oatmeal. After a particularly
close photo, a photo which took the stewards and placing judges a lifetime to
decipher,ends up in a tough beat, you watch the super slow motion replay of the
finish, time and time again, the mud flying up in parabolic arcs, the jocks\'
helmets buried in the horses\' manes, the horses\' ears flattened to near
invisibility, a poorly tied tail partially undone. You lose each time you watch,
transfixed, but as John Hawkes wrote in \"The Lime Twig\" \"Love is a long close
scrutiny like that\".
You are able to tear yourself away from the screen, and you notice that a large
rainbow has appeared, spanning from North Shore Towers to Creedmoor. Considering
my bloodline, I am happy to have ended up somewhere in between.
