Airplanes and the Racing Form

Before we get up in the air, though, we should take a moment to recognize how good Justify is already, and how good he could possibly become. Winning the Kentucky Derby without first running as a two-year-old, the first time that’s happened since Apollo in 1882 (yes, 1882), is in itself a tremendous accomplishment. Going on to capture the Triple Crown is even more amazing; doing it while going undefeated, joining only the legendary Seattle Slew in doing that, is yet more unbelievable. People will now, of course, rekindle the argument over who is the best race horse ever – they probably already are – and Secretariat, Man o’ War, Sham, Affirmed and others will likely remain the standard for now. But who knows? Maybe we really are seeing the next contender for that honor. For now, let’s simply enjoy this marvelous horse. We’ll leave the rankings for a later date.

There was a period of time in my life when I was a regular passenger on flights from Cleveland to San Diego. Generally, of course, during this four-plus hour flight, I made sure I had a Racing Form with me, to study, handicap, and read the articles. Almost invariably, the person sitting next to me would make some sort of comment – inquisitive, not malicious or derogatory – about my unusual choice of reading material. Most times they had no idea why the publication, with all the numbers and symbols, was so interesting to me.

On one trip to San Diego, I lucked into a free upgrade to first class. I was seated next to a lovely older lady, probably in her mid-80s, give or take a few years. As soon as I pulled out my Racing Form, she asked if I was into horse racing. After a few minutes, we discovered that we shared a passion for the horses, although I realized after we’d only shared a few bits of information that she was playing this horse game at an entirely different, and higher, level than me. Nevertheless, our mutual interest in horses and handicapping led to hours of stimulating conversation.

She told me her husband had passed away several years before, and she was no longer able to take care of their extremely large horse farm in Lexington, KY. So, she said, she’d sold the estate and their horses for quite a large sum of money and moved into a very unusual facility for the remainder of her years: a Holiday Inn. That in itself was quite interesting.

She told me it was wonderful; she had daily housekeeping, a restaurant with room service, and security everywhere. Plus, for a small tip, the doorman would bring her car around whenever she wanted to get out of the rooms she had rented. This feisty lady also joked that she was fortunate because, since she was living in a motel, friends and relatives only would visit for a short time and would never ask to stay overnight.

Her next statement floored me. She said she was headed to San Diego to rent a convertible, and then to drive up the entire Pacific coast highway – alone. At one point, I thought she might ask me to go along, but, alas, that never happened. She went on to tell me that she had spent the past few years traveling the country attending races, even going so far as to fly to Dubai to go to the races there. She said the long flight there was exhausting for someone her age, but well worth the experience. This lovely woman’s attitude about life stuck with me for years, and I naturally thought about her the next time I took out the Racing Form on an airplane.

It was another flight to San Diego, and I was again fortunately upgraded to first class. Another nice lady, about my age, was sitting next to me. I got myself situated, settled into my seat, and brought out my Form. She remarked on it and asked if I was a horseplayer. When I said that I was, she immediately said I should meet her husband, who also loved the thoroughbreds, even though they lived in Pennsylvania. Much to my surprise, she then said, “Let me go get him, he’s sitting in coach.” A few minutes later, her husband sat down next to me, and I had a different partner for the rest of the journey. We talked horse racing and swapped stories about some of our experiences at the track. He, too, was an educator, but at the college level, in western Pennsylvania, and often attended races at Belmont and Saratoga.

I mentioned that our small group of weekend Ohio handicappers had always talked about visiting those two tracks. Upon hearing this, he offered to take us to Belmont at some point if we were interested. We chatted some more and exchanged information, and when I returned home to Ohio, I told my friends about the encounter I had had on the plane and said that this total stranger seemed to be a really nice guy and a true lover of the racing game. Then, figuring there was nothing to lose, I asked if they wanted to take him up on his offer to get together and hit a meet at Belmont. Skeptical at first, they both eventually said, “Oh, what the heck.”

So, after months of phone calls, we arranged a meeting with this new guy at a motel near the Pennsylvania Turnpike, where we could leave our car and he would drive us to Belmont Park. As we left Ohio to meet our new guide – who my buddies didn’t know at all, and who I’d only met once on a plane for a few hours – we surmised that we must be nuts to do such a thing. But our new comrade was where he said he would be, much to our relief, and after some introductions, we were off on our adventure to New York.

The drive though the city was exhilarating and sort of frightening, with high speeds, twisting roads, and crazy drivers, but we made it out to Elmont intact and were thrilled to finally have the chance to see one of the great venues in racing. Belmont Park is enormous, and even though it was just a standard race day, not a marquee day like the Belmont Stakes, the place reeked of excitement and racing tradition. After a fabulous day of betting and soaking in the atmosphere of the legendary Big Sandy, we again found ourselves in the car with our guide. Once again navigating the streets of New York like a race car driver, he took us to an Italian restaurant in a trendy part of New York. After an extraordinary, decadent meal, he drove us back to the motel in order to get our car. It was, to our relief, intact and sitting right where we’d left it earlier.

Buoyed in spirit by this unexpected, extraordinary experience, after saying our goodbyes to our new friend, we decided, on the spur of the moment, that, since this was shaping up to be something of a trip of a lifetime anyway, why not continue the adventure by heading up to Ocean City, New Jersey the next day to visit Monmouth Park. The elderly lady I’d met on that plane years ago had, by now, long since made her drive up the California coast alone, but she immediately came to my mind as we started verbally sketching out the plan for Monmouth Park. Wherever she was, I hoped she would be proud of me for being spontaneous and for undertaking such an unusual and exciting journey in the pursuit of our shared passion.

To be continued…