A friend of mine, Andrew, came to town to watch the ongoing Michelle Wie saga last Friday in Cincinnati only to arrive at the course minutes before she was bounced out of the tournament by Johnny Noname (who would name their kid that?), who played the round of his life. We decided to move to Plan B, which in retrospect was really Plan A, a trip to the Redneck Wall Street — the horse track.
As we arrived at River Downs in Cincinnati, it quickly became evident why the track was the redneck version of Wall Street. There were betting slips all over the floor, financial futures of families being decided every race, deals being made every minute, and suckers losing money faster than Jose Canseco. I felt severely out of place because I was wearing a shirt. It truly was a wretched hive of scum and villainy. It was great.
I was a rookie at the track game, but while Andrew was explaining the finer points of playing the ponies, I couldn't help but to continue to glance around and take in the scene. What a group of winners — it appeared that the real players all were missing at least three teeth, were smoking, and looked like the only thing they had to wear in their closet was that bag of trash they were supposed to throw out the night before.
I placed a modest bet in the first race and my horse ended up winning easily. As it trotted to the winner's circle I prepared my victory speech. I didn't anticipate my horse winning, but I was able to pull together a pretty typical "I always believed in horse number four. Even when four was on its deathbed with cancer, and all of you wanted to put him on the first train to the dog food factory, I believed. When you give 110 percent, you can't help but feel the energy of success here today. Number four wasn't just racing for me, he was racing for you, and for your children, and your children's children. Number four is a true American hero, one who can finally unite the country. Together, we can all ride number four off into the sunset, where we will all be champions." I'm not going to lie — I was mildly disappointed when Andrew told me I didn't get to give a speech.
After my brief bout of beginner's luck, we both went on an impressive losing streak. I lost hard-earned money on Start Sooner (who didn't actually get to start sooner), Franchise Player (I had to go this way because Cat Launch was scratched and I never really recovered from that), and Success Trapp (I couldn't have seen that one coming). While we had fallen on hard luck, our attention again turned to the crowd there.
After hearing some unpleasant old guy, with an equally unpleasant female, yell enthusiastically what sounded like, "I got oat bran!" but was probably "I got a win," we began to ponder how exactly ugly guys went about picking up girls.
Andrew: Have you ever wondered how ugly people get together?
Me: No, not really.
Andrew: How do they do it? Does a guy just walk up to a girl and use a pickup line like, "Hey, you're ugly," or "Hey, you're close to average?" Do they just talk about the latest episode of CSI: Miami or something?
Me: Scanning the crowd and glancing at some of the couples. I think every guy here used one of two pickup lines:
1) "Crap, I think I just got you pregnant ... again."
2) "Hey, are you a crack whore?"
Girl: "Nooo!"
Guy: "Wanna be?"
Walking to one of the betting machines, we passed a veteran who was intently focused on a TV showing a simulcast race. We stopped to watch it and from the start of the race, all the way until the end, the guy just kept repeating the same thing. "C'mon, 10-3. C'mon, 10-3. C'mon, 10-3. C'mon, 10-3. C'mon, 10-3" in a monotone and slightly annoying voice. How did they finish? 10-1-3, which prompted a louder than it should have been "HA" from me as the man sat down angrily in his chair.
I don't know what I was doing wrong, whether it was thinking of how to spend the money I was sure I was going to win while the race was still going on or the fact that I bet on future bottles of glue like Cuddlebrink, I just could not win. As our impressive streak of losses continued to mount, we changed our focus back to Michelle Wie and, after some discussion, found out what she needs to do to really be successful. She needs a Chubbs.
Famed golfing superstar Happy Gilmore, like Wie, had a wicked drive, but needed Chubbs to teach him how to complete his game before he could take down Shooter McGavin. It's all so simple (but, one of my friends made a good point while I was later explaining this theory to him, as he simply replied, "Who doesn't need Carl Weathers in their life?" to which I had no response). My advice to her is that the day she turns pro, she needs to find the best one-handed golf coach she can, and fast, before grandma loses her house. I don't know, maybe the tour publicity director can lend a hand and be a shoulder for her to cry on.
Now that we had solved Michelle Wie's problems, we again focused on the task at hand, and that was leaving the track with more money than we brought. On the way to make more bets, I suddenly realized it must have been "take your kids to work" day at the track, because I saw more than a few degenerates with multiple kids in tow. And this wasn't like, "Let's bring the kids to the track to see the horses," this was more a, "Here's two fruit rollups, now get out of my face" thing. I started to get the feeling that the kids should eat their fruit rollups as quickly as possible, because as the minutes ticked down until post-time, I sincerely believed the parents were about to reclaim the fruit snack and wager that on some farfetched trifecta.
I felt genuinely sorry for one 2-year-old boy I saw running around aimlessly while his 5-year-old sister, clearly the most responsible one in the group, supervised him. As he started making his way to the escalator, the sister did the smart thing and started calling for her mom. The mom tried to shrug it off, but after about the fifth call, she angrily put down her race program, turned, glared at the daughter, and then turned her attention back to the upcoming race. She gets my vote for Mom of the Year.
Towards the end of the day, I finally got lucky and won $24, leaving me with $35 of my original $40. Andrew advised me to leave while I was close to even, but I didn't see much fun in that. Instead, we decided we were going to beat the system once and for all, by betting on nearly all the horses in the race. We sat down and came up with three good boxed trifectas, and then just blew the rest on about four more last-second ones.
I sat in the grandstand to watch the race feeling smug — I was going to beat the system. As I looked over the betting slips, I dropped the brilliant, "Ha, we bet on every horse except for number eight" line, which I regretted immediately. I couldn't believe I said that, it was a complete rookie move and it all but ensured that number eight was going to win the race and leave us ruined.
It's pretty conceivable what should have happened in that race, but somehow, we did beat the system, as eight got smoked and we walked away with a $400 winning trifecta. Moral of the story? Only good comes from gambling (when you're smart like me).
The Sports Gospel According to Mark is sponsored by BetOnSports.com. BetOnSports.com gives you the greatest sports action to bet on. Wager on football, cricket, boxing, Rugby, horse racing, and more. Mark Chalifoux is also a weekly columnist for SportsFan Magazine. His columns appear every Tuesday on Sports Central. You can e-mail Mark at [email protected].
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