Hold the Glue

The first four hours of the Belmont Stakes were wonderful. It was the perfect place for my first horse race. I found a sweet spot that gave me a 180 degree view of the final 200 yards. The spot was so sweet that I was not going to be able to move. So there I stood, against a railing looking out at the second deck of the venue. From 12:00 to 4:00, I really enjoyed myself. There was a bit a breeze, I was in the shade, and there was a sense that good things were happening all over the park.

Then things changed. Despite being totally stoked about the upcoming Belmont Stakes, the races got further apart. 45 minutes of standing between races started to wear on me. My horses started loosing with New York Knicks like consistency. It would have been fine to go grab some food or place another bet, but I couldn’t move. Soon, I would turn around and see ten people standing behind me. News of a Yankees comeback trickled through the crowd. The mood started to turn.

By 6:00 I was on fumes. The crowd went crazy each time Big Brown was on the two jumbotrons set up on the infield. The pomp and circumstance of the big race was lost on me. Everyone was standing, everyone was plastered, and I was on my toes. For the first half of the race the crowd was optimistic, ready to go crazy for Big Brown. With the horse loosing momentum, the jockey pulled up. Instead of the site of Big Brown dashing toward victory, I saw a defeated horse slowly galloping to a chorus of boos as it crossed the finish line dead last. Some people cried fix, others wondered out loud if the horse was hurt and should have raced at all. I picked up my bag and sloshed to a food stand. I was spent. Six hours in that kind of heat has been known to kill the elderly. As I sat down to eat and check my bets, the silence of the park was defining. It is tough to make 125,000 people quiet. I didn’t care who won the race. When Big Brown pulled up I thought the day had come to a disastrous conclusion because the horse that couldn’t loose had lost. I was naive. The real race was the trip home.

I went back to the second deck. With so many people dashing to trains, I could sit down. I figured if I left after the last race I could easily grab a train. I was wrong. Me and 75,000 of my best friends stayed. I wondered through an ecological disaster. I had gotten word around 3:00 that the bathrooms had been closed and people had started pissing on the doors. The garbage inside the park was only equaled by what had been left outside. If that Native American guy was there he would have spontaneously combusted. I walked out of the park a tired free man, only to be herded like cattle. Within 25 minutes I was able to get to a train, only to be forced to stand. This would not have been terrible if the train had departed on time. We waited for 45 minutes before leaving. It was a Seinfeld episode. So much for the ridiculous “trains will leave every 15 minutes” rhetoric of the state of New York. This was followed by a mad dash through the steamy subways of NYC. That place deserves its own reality show, “Survivor: NYC Subway System” I was able to get back to Grand Central Station a little after 10:00 and hopped on the train to New Haven. Two and a half hours later I was home; I regained my humanity, but was out hundreds of dollars.

‘Can’t wait for next year.