Horse Racing in a Vacuum

The great philosopher, Aristotle, once said,

If a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound?

Actually, I don't know if that can be attributed to Aristotle, Andy Warhol, or Oogamagook-the-caveman for that matter. If I had my handy dandy Dictionary of Quotes, I would reference it properly. Unfortunately, I am unable to locate my handy dandy Dictionary of Quotes as it was not in any of the boxes marked Books. I suspect that some moron, namely me, placed it into a box labelled Winter Coats or Dining Room/China. Those boxes will probably remain sealed for a substantial amount of time because (1) it's currently 96 degrees here in North Texas, and (2) we do not own any dining room furniture to put in the new dining room nor store the china.

Anyway, the point is that horse racing is extremely difficult to follow without the dissemination of information. Most pertinent racing information is obtained through the internet. The print media, i.e., the daily paper delivered to the doorstep or purchased at 7-Eleven along with a bitter cup of coffee on the way to work, barely covers the day's racing card. There will be 84 pages of the sports section devoted to the Mavericks and reviewing their season with tedious facts as well as repetitive opinions and observations but it requires an electron microscope to read the previous day's race summaries buried on the second to last page, beneath Cycling News and the Bass Fishing Report. Following thoroughbreds, races, tracks, trainers, and the Hollywood Park Pick Six carryover truly requires a daily read through websites like DRF.com and Bloodhorse.com, and of course all the blogs.

Since moving, obtaining horse racing information is about as fun as a root canal. The time it takes for my dial-up connection to pull up Dan Illman's Formblog is equivalent to an elephant's gestational period. My 7-year-old daughter could graduate from medical school in the amount of time it would take me to pull up and read all the musings, insights, and information that is provided by the TBA geniuses. And as for my little horse watch that I have on the web? That's a real time luxury.

So I'm not the most informed horse player these days. Horse racing goes on whether I read about it or not. People are scoring nice wins at this very moment while others are grumbling and ripping up losing tickets. And it is with this philosophy that I shall approach this sport for the next few weeks - the adventure is in the race, be it a maiden claiming race at Evangeline Downs or a big stakes race at Churchill Downs. Handicapping and preparation for these races will not consist of hours of pouring over statistics and past performances, but a quick lookie in the Form, a sip of cold beer and a couple of bucks for a cheap exotic wager in the hopes that the payoff will be a nice tidy sum that will enable me to buy dining room furniture so I can finish unpacking my boxes.