Chiaroscuro at Hastings · 17.10.08

“Chiaroscuro (Italian for light-dark) is a term in art for a contrast between light and dark” (from Wikipedia).

“Bottle of Smoke”

Do you know the song “Bottle of Smoke” by The Pogues? If so, you’ll understand what I mean when I say that I practically lived that song this past Sunday:

Twenty f***ing five to one
My gambling days are done
I bet on a horse called the Bottle of Smoke
And my horse won

In the seventh race, the 1 1/16 mile Autumn Leaves Allowance I had the 6 (Till the Storm) and 7 (Surprisal). When I placed my bets the 6 was one of the favourites, while the 7 was a 15-1 long-shot.

The race was, shall we say, eventful. Just out of the break, the 2 horse (Saratoga Avenue) got squeezed and was forced to back off sharply. Then, approaching the clubhouse turn the 2B (Valdero) broke down, and as he was pulling up he collided with the 1 (Bears Home Run), who then lost his rider. At that point Surprisal was fighting for the lead, and he then took over and went on to earn the win by a length.

Stewards inquiries
Swift and fiery
I had the Bottle of Smoke
Inquisitions and suppositions
I had the Bottle of Smoke
F*** the stewards
A trip to Lourdes
Might give the old f***ers
The power of sight….

We watched as Valdero was loaded into the horse ambulance — he would eventually be put down. The thrown jockey, Pedro Alvarado, managed to get up, but he was pretty battered. The “Enquiry” sign lit up almost immediately after the finish, as the stewards reviewed the breakdown and collision on video to determine if it had affected the order of finish. After a few minutes the announcement came that, in the stewards’ opinion, the incidents had no bearing on the rest of the race. Announcer Dan Jukich then said that there was also a jockey’s foul claim against my long-shot winner. Saratoga Avenue had finished second, and his jockey Mario Gutierrez claimed that Surprisal and the 1A (Bears Tiger), had squeezed him out of early contention and cost him the race. The replay was shown again and again on the closed-circuit TVs around Hastings. It was close — either Surprisal or Bears Tiger could have been at fault, although it actually seemed to me, based on the head-on camera angle, that Gutierrez had tried to send his horse through a hole that wasn’t really there. It took at least ten minutes for the stewards to decide that any fault rested with the 1A horse, and the claim was disallowed.

While we were waiting, between video replays I glanced at the toteboard. Surprisal had been 15-1, but when I looked more closely at the final odds I thought the “1” in “15” looked strange — we were standing on the hill near the top of the stretch, so I had a poor line-of-sight. “Is that a ‘15’ or a ‘45’?” I asked my nephew. “Looks like 45 to me” he said — and so did everyone else. Sure enough, right before the race the odds on Surprisal must have dropped drastically to 45-1. When the payoffs were posted on the board I did a $93.90 happy dance.

Of course, a mere $2 bet, even at those odds, did not mean “my gambling days are done”, as the song says. But it was still my biggest payoff ever. More importantly, this was one of the eight races that I handicapped that day, and I picked the winners in five of them — and all but one of those paid more than $12. The results that day were the first indication that I’ve had since I began taking handicapping seriously that I could potentially be good at this.

Sins forgiven and celebrations
They had the Bottle of Smoke….

After all the yells, hugs, handshakes, and fist-bumps, The Daughter piped up “Daddy, can I have your money? I need an outfit for my Webkin!"

“Morituri te salutant”

My Sunday celebrations were tempered somewhat by the knowledge of Valdero’s fate. In fact, the Thanksgiving weekend was a bad one for breakdowns. The day before, Lecturing Lynn suffered a fatal breakdown after pressing the early pace in the Ballerina Stakes. Finally, on Monday Peaceful Turzia broke down in the stretch during the eighth race and had to be euthanized, while Saturday Asset in the 2nd race and Chivago in the 9th were pulled up for undisclosed reasons. Were track conditions a cause (perhaps the surface has become compacted over the course of the year and is now harder on horses’ legs than normal), or was this simply a statistical “blip”? I don’t know.

In Ancient Rome, when gladiators entered the Colosseum they would turn to the emperor and cry “Ave, Caesar, morituri te salutant! (Hail, Caesar, those who are about to die salute you!)”. Some bettors think of horses only as numbers — little more than the numbers on a roulette wheel. But they are more than that — they are living, feeling, flesh-and-blood beings. While racehorses don’t fight to the death as the gladiators did, they do put their lives on the line for our benefit whenever they step onto the racetrack. For that, they deserve our respect — we should salute them.

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What do you think?

  1. This is my second full year working the gate and for the second time, breakdown rates have gone UP near the end of the season. Wear and tear is what the gate vet attributes it to.

    — Dr. Timothy Yatcak · Oct 17, 09:20 AM · #

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