OUR AFTERNOON AT THE SARATOGA RACE COURSE

We finally made it to the racetrack during the last weekend of the season. Even after passing by the track multiple times a day all summer, we had no idea how crazy it was going to be once we actually got inside the gates. 

We knew there were going to be people everywhere, but it was amazingly interesting people watching. People there take the racing in all different levels of seriousness. Some people are obviously just there just drinking, betting every once in awhile, but mostly hanging out. Then there are people at the other side of the spectrum, super serious, carrying around a program will the all the horse stats and things I'm not even going to pretend to understand. They stand around and watch the horses get ready to enter the track, whispering behind their programs, probably about horse muscles and stuff. Who knows? And there's Douglas and me. People who have absolutely no idea what is happening. But, I mean, we are kind of horse racing people now. We did place a bet. Here's our bet ticket...or bet slip...or something as proof. 

Okay, and just get ready. Because we won. We put five dollars down on a horse (solely based on its name - Mildly Offensive) and got nine dollars. Did you get that? We won four dollars. Yeah. And let me just say, putting money down on a race, even five dollars, took me from not caring about the racing at all to jumping up and down squealing when our race took place. It was the fastest I had ever gone from not caring about something at all to being deeply invested in it. I can see how this becomes a problem for some (a lot) of people. 

So whenever I experience something completely new to me, like all of this, I find at least one detail to become obsessed with. And here, it's clearly the jockeys. Look at him and his tiny, grasshopper legs perched up on that horse. What is the deal? Like, I knew they existed before I saw them up close, but once I did I really wanted to know everything about jockey life. It's probably good that I will never get that wish. 

I was kind of worried that since we went for the first time at the end of the season I would regret not having gone a bunch more earlier in the summer. But I think I'm good. One afternoon there with Douglas was really enough for us. Once we claimed our prize money, we left the betting counter, and Douglas said, "We cannot bet anymore. But I really want to." So our compulsion to throw away more money on something we have no understanding of coupled with our extreme love of concession stand food is really dangerous at the Saratoga Race Course, and luckily the season ends today. So the temptation is dead...

...too bad right down the road there's year-round harness racing at a casino that has a full course buffet all day.