The Risk

I'm sitting here on a bizarrely warm evening in early February, enjoying a beer and listening to Charlie Parker. It's probably because of that that I'm thinking back to Ken Burns' PBS series "Jazz," especially the episode that deals with the mess that was caused when so many great jazz musicians got hooked on smack in the 1950's. The episode was titled "Risk," and at the time I remember thinking how logical it was that these marvelous musicians and thinkers, who were so enthusiastically going beyond the borders of established music, decided to do the same with their bodies by using heroin. I don't know if Charlie Parker would have been the same person or musician without drugs -- it can be argued strongly that they held him back -- but it is impossible to assess his work now without taking them into account.

And sitting here, thinking about risk, my mind's eye is brough back to a a day a few years ago in Southern California. It was March 6, 2003 (I just looked up the date; I want to say it was the day of the Big 'Cap, but I'm not sure), and it was the day Laffit Pincay rode his last race ever. I was at the track that day, and I remember it vividly; it was a picture-postcard early spring Angeleno afternoon, and the turf course at Santa Anita shone like a freshly minted emerald in the glistening Southern California sun.

It was a 6 1/2 furlong race down the hill, and I had a $10 win bet on Pincay's mount, Trampus Too. I don't remember why I thought the horse was going to win, but despite the fact that I've never put too much stock in jockeys, at least some of my thinking was because of Pincay.

I was still living on the East Coast when Pincay went through his hungry period in the mid-1990's, but I was there frequently as he went through his revival. My racetrack friends, who unlike me were grizzled railbird veterans, talked about it among themselves frequently, and the consensus in our down-at-heels group was that Pincay was as good as ever, and it was only the short-sightedness of trainers that had caused his slump. None of this really mattered by the time I realized what was going on, though, for by then Pincay had begun getting live mounts, and was winning races at a clip that brought back his 1970's glory days.

It is probably an exaggeration, but I like to think that my hadicapping graduation came on a day in the fall of 1998. I was working as a caddie then, and had caught an early Sunday loop, and headed to Santa Anita with a friend from the golf course. I don't remember exactly what day it was -- I went so frequently then that the days tend to get jumbled in my memory -- but I do remember that it was very crowded, and we got there late and couldn't get a seat, and so were forced to bum around the Club House looking for a good spot to handicap and watch the races.

Robert and I were standing at the bar right after a race had been run, and I casually turned the pages of the Form to the races from Northern California. The next race was the lone stakes on the card; I saw a horse I liked, noticed that he was being ridden by Pincay, turned back to the entries page, and saw that this was Pincay's only mount on the day. The horse was trained by the late Walter Greenman (I don't know how I remember these things). I turned to Robert.

"This horse figures in every way. And he's got Pincay. Pincay gave up probably five live mounts here today to fly up to San Francisco to ride this horse. He should be three-to-five. And he's five-to-two. What gives?"

"Well, the favorite is being ridden by Baze," Robert said. "They bet everything he rides up there." Pause. "But the Pincay horse is trained by Walter Greenman. He knows what he's doing." I looked again at the past performances. It was good to go to the track with people who knew what they were talking about, and whom you trusted.

"I have $100 in my pocket, Robert. I feel like betting every cent on this Pincay horse."

"I'd give you an A for guts for that. But for me to bet a week's worth of food and beer money on a horse... I just couldn't do it."

I told him that I reluctantly agreed with him, waited a few minutes, walked to the $50 window, and bet $60 on the Pincay horse. He won by open lengths at 2-1, and I can still see Robert's eyes pop out of his head when I showed him the ticket. The next day I was a minor celebrity in the caddyshack. "You graduated, Chrissy," Corso, my racetrack mentor, said to me. I suppose a normal person would think that he was nuts, but I knew exactly what he was talking about.

After that day, I rooted for Pincay regularly. I bet against him often, of course; then and now my play pays scant attention to jockeys. But when it came time for him to win another riding title, or to break Bill Shoemaker's record, I always rooted for Pincay. If a horseplayer can't believe in redemption, he's in the wrong game.

And so I was horrified when I saw Trampus Too go down that bright spring day at Santa Anita. I was heartened that Pincay got up, but when I read a few days later that he had fractured a bone in his neck, that his career was over, I was very sad. I maintained to that very day that he was as good as any rider on the circuit, even at 56, and I was sad to see his career end. Especially that way.

But sitting here tonight, realizing that Laffit Pincay's ascent from his personal nadir mirrored my education as a horselplayer, I realize that that day in March is a fitting illustration of what horseplayers go through. While our risks are obviously less drastic than what jockeys face, we confront uncertainty and doubt every day. Each Racing Form that we open could either be the ticket to vast riches or a one-way ticket to Palookaville.

And that's what I like about people connected to this great game in general, and about horseplayers in particular: they embrace the uncertainty of life. Talking about horse racing recently, someone told me that I "should cut that shit out" of my life. But that person, secure in the comfortable falsehood that his life is devoid of risk, misses the whole point: that by embracing uncertainty, we horseplayers are reducing its impact on our lives. It's one thing to sit idly by, wondering if you'll be killed in a car crash the next day; it's another to try to seize fate by trying to nail the late Pick 4 at Saratoga. It may be a pasttime that conventional society deems vulgar, and a waste, but I'll take it any day of the week. After all, the cognoscenti at the time thought Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie were nuts. I may not be Charlie Parker, but I was there when Tiznow won the 2001 Santa Anita Handicap, and while I may indeed by nuts, a moment and a race like that are enough for me.