HOW TO WIN AT THE HORSE RACING TRACKS

Dear Readers,
I am happy to report that I won 3 exactas the other day at Santa Anita Track. I am sure you are dying to know how I did this.

First, it was a miserably cold day - worse than Ireland or any other cold place we'd been too. It was cold and clammy, and the air oozed with moisture. Usually we sit outside where you can actually see the race, but I felt I'd get instant-pneumonia if I did that. We had tickets to the Clubhouse so I parked myself in a warm room with a television nearby. It turned out that some serious gamblers were in that room. They would discuss the horses; and one man was getting bets or tips via cell phone, and so he would shout out: "What? Victorina? And who else is good?" etc. etc.

So, dear Readers, I listened to this man and his friends, jutted down the names of the horses that they tossed out. And I had some 3 newspaper predictions of which horses would win. I looked at the horses names and came up with the top 3 mentioned by all these sources. Believe it or not, I bet three exactas and won three exactas. Basically I boxed my 3 top horses. I didn't bet a lot, since I only bet for entertainment - if I cash a few tickets now and then, I'm happy - but I was ahead.

I've tried other methods of divining the winners, such as following my instinct, betting on gray horses, studying the trot of the horses to see which horse really wants to win, waiting for a horse to wink at me, using birthdays or lucky numbers, even trying to decipher the racing forms; but this was the method that has worked best for me. Three exactas is not easy to divine.

That makes for a good day at the track!

RACE TRACK (AGAIN!), RAIN, AND JAY LENO

We went back to Santa Anita Race track. Lauren wanted a repeat of his winning a trifecta the last time we were there. I was hopeful that the rain would invalidate handicapping and I'd have a shot, what with my picking horses by name or color. Not too many people at Santa Anita, and many horses were scratched. Well, the way it went, the favorites were winning, except for the last horse when we picked the favorites, and the long shot won. In short, we lost. But that is what gambling is all about. In fact I have an aversion to gambling; it has something to do with some family legend about some grandfather or great-grandfather who was a chronic gambler and lost tracks of property. But I'm open to occasional playing with slot machines or visits to the track.

The rain - it's falling in torrents! In buckets! And that's good, I think, because we've had a serious drought. The problem though is that the rain is falling so hard and is likely to cause landslides. The traffic coming home was bad; people in California are so unused to rain that they ride their brakes and do scary things in the sleek freeways.

Jay Leno - poor guy! He's missing his writers, and is struggling with writing his own material. I never thought writers would be sorely missed.

DAY AT SANTA ANITA RACE TRACK

The question, dear Readers, is will Precious win or lose at the race track today??????

Stay tuned later, dear Readers, stay tuned!

(In the style of Marianne Villanueva's blog - thanks Marianne - you don't even have the foggiest idea do you that I'm imitating this style???)