Philadelphia Park was the scene for my birthday celebration with a few of my best friends. The weather was fantastic, sunny, but with a refreshing cool breeze to make it comfortable all the day long. Ten of us gathered to pick the winners of nine races.
To begin we all put up two dollars for a total of twenty. The oldest then places a bet with the twenty dollars. Should that bet win, the new total is passed to the next oldest who places a bet on the second race. Should the bets fail and the pot wiped out, we begin again with two dollars each, creating another pot of twenty. The concept is known as a parlay.
For each race we also placed individual bets on our favorites. If you are frugal and bet two dollars on each race, you only spend eighteen dollars for a great day of being with friends, having eats, drinks, many laughs, and maybe going home with more money than when you started.
I cannot begin to tell you how much fun it is for a group of people trying to figure out on which horse to place their individual bet. Here is a horse who was born on my birthday. Here is a horse with long odds named, ‘Loveyasister’, my little sister says I should bet . I don’t. Loveyasister wins.
Another horse, another long shot, is touted by Charlie. He says it has a connection to the “The Wizard of Oz”. The rest of us are looking at the names of the horses, jockeys, trainers, the horse’s bloodline…..YO! CHAL!….we can’t find the connection to OZ.???
Charlie loves this. Look at the color of the horse. It is a roan, a horse of a different color. Not all black, not all brown, not all gray. Then he picks out some real racing attributes as to why the horse could win. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we have heard all this before, means nothing.
Brianna has her pod in a docking unit and playing music for us. We are going through the horses, trying to pick a winner. Only a few minutes until post time we are not finding a horse that speaks to us. From the pod comes, Over The Rainbow, sung by, Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s. In a flash we were at the betting window putting our hope on the horse of a different color. He wins and pays nicely.
Our pool of money by the 4th race is now up to over $200 . Imagine the pressure on the next bettor. A race with nine horses that have never won a race.
I cannot go through each and every race so let us go to the ninth and last race. The Nova Bum of Bodog and wsop fame, and Rachel win a trifecta for $245. The parlay group ends up with nothing. No one loses more than $25 on the day and we take home fun, good spirits, and memories a million dollars could not buy.
How lucky are we.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Bill // Jul 31, 2007 at 5:44 am
Joe,
Great story. Nothing like a day at the races, especially with family and friends.
I worked one summer at the Atlantic City racetrack, where I seldom saw people that were that successful. I guess as long as the point is to have fun, you can’t lose…
2 Joe S. // Aug 1, 2007 at 11:11 pm
Have to admit this was a very winning day even though some of us were only a few dollars lighter.
Yes, Bill, the key may very well be the company you keep, limit how much you might lose, and have fun.
As my sage brother in law pointed out as our pool money increased…it is still only a two dollar bet!
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