by Sam’s-A-Fan
TRIBECA, NY – Here we are the day before the Belmont Stakes and I wanted to write about racing. I wanted to be that smart commentator and give you my picks for the days card, or at least for the graded races, get some people talking and generally have a good old time. But here’s my problem, Saturday’s Daily Racing Form isn’t available until today, so with no time to study the charts, there’s no way to make any intelligent picks and nothing for me to write about. What’s a boy to do? I’ll tell you what a boy’s to do:
With my wife out of town and no adult supervision, we go out, we eat a lot and we drink a lot, and we come home too snookered to post on www.MeetTheMatts.com.
Well that’s not good enough, and I feel horrible about it. I think to myself what about West Coast Craig on a Monday? Everyone hates Mondays and to add to his burden he has to post every Monday – and does he complain? I don’t know, maybe? And what of Rex O’Rourke, posting religiously, every Sunday?! And what about Cookie? You don’t think she wants to get her drunk on every other Thursday and blow off posting, sure she does, but she doesn’t! Really I should be ashamed, but can I use these three keyboards to come up with something even slightly coherent? And how will I bring the sport of kings into the mix without the proper prep? It’s at this point when I have an epiphany and say to myself WWCD?
“What would Clancy do?”
What would jgclancy, this site’s eatingest/drinkingest contributor, do in my situation? Well, I know what he’d do! He’d sit down at the now spinning computer and bang something out on the keyboard in the middle and he’d write about what he ate and what he drank and somehow make it relevant and he’d post by golly he’d post!
A wise man once told me, the next best thing to winning at the track, is losing at the track.
Hall of Fame Jockey Gary Stevens played George Woolf in the movie Seabiscut.
Many people go to the track and treat it like any other sporting event or a rock concert, or some other sort of amusement. That is to say they get drunk. It is my belief that drinking to excess at the track is the enemy of cashing tickets at the track.
Bart Simpson: “Krusty, do you think about your father a lot?”
Krusty the Klown: “All the time. Except when I’m at the track. Then it’s all business!”
The scene in The Godfather, where Jack Woltz wakes up in his Beverly Hills bed to find his prize stallion Khartoum’s head cut off in the bed with him is one of the most perfect scenes in movie making history. There’s maybe six edits through the whole scene and the only dialogue is “Ahhhhhhhhhhh, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
My system, when I’m picking the ponies, relies very heavily on the Daily Racing Form’s Beyer Speed Figures. It does pretty well for me until I start getting greedy and decide I want to bet some exotics because they pay more than a straight win bet.
In the 10th race tomorrow at Belmont, formerly known as the Manhattan Handicap, but now known as the Woodford Reserve Manhattan Handicap, since the race is now sponsored by a delicious small batch bourbon, I’d like to bet a horse in honor of my man JGClancy, but I can’t find one that seems to have a connection. If only White Russian, or Homemade Hooch were running!
For the big race tomorrow, I’ll probably box a mess of exactas with Mine that Bird, Charitable Man and Dunkirk, who I liked in the derby but who didn’t like the track on the first Saturday in May.
Enjoy your day everyone and remember…
“Bet with your head, not over it.”
Management wants to remind me to remind you that tomorrow is the final day for the Interleague Ticket Trivia Contest.
