Thursday, December 6^th.

The Outrider made a pretty good salad, with all kinds of greens plus fried chicken pieces, with the house dressing. I had stopped by after the lunch crowd cleared to have one, plus a Fosters or two. I was just putting the last forkful into my mouth when I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to find my Uncle Will smiling enigmatically beside me.

“Billy Boy,” he said. “Didn’t expect to see you here today.” He pulled his gold Tiffany pocket watch out and looked at it. “With Gulfstream the only major track running today, and it three quarters finished.”

I pointed to the salad, my mouth still full. “Unh,” I croaked.

“Exactly,” he nodded, taking the chair opposite me. “Truly an excellent salad. Reason enough to come, regardless of the horses.”

I’d bought a form at the door, more out of habit than anything else, and it lay on the table open to the 8^th race, which would go off in 18 minutes.

Uncle Will slid it around on the table, making a chirping sound as he did so, and looking up at the pre-race activity on the monitors. “Tsk, tsk,” he chirped. “A very nasty day at Los Alamitos,” and turned his attention back to the form. He took off his bowler, set it down on the table, and pulled out his Mont Blanc gold-coated Classique. With another glance at the monitors, he scribbled over the past performances of the one, thirteen, fourteen, and sixteen.

“Uh,” I started eloquently, “uh, what are you doing?”

“Just bringing the form up to date.”

“Why? You know you don’t be maidens. Especially maidens on the turf.”

He looked at me like I had just been transformed into a goldfish.

“No. You do not bet maidens, especially on the turf. I avoid betting maidens unless I see something hidden in the past performances that the crowd has missed. In order to find that,” he continued, stabbing the form with an index finger, “one must look at the form.”

“Sorry,” I said petulantly, and took a large swallow of Fosters.

“I note the crowd likes the number four and the number five. Good reason to avoid them. The one and two can be dismissed as irrelevant. Number three is well bred with an excellent turf jockey, Jose Ortiz, and cannot be dismissed as easily. It’s clear why the crowd likes the four and the five; both have run adequately more than once on turf, both have excellent jockeys and good trainers, and both are coming off of a two-month layoff. The connections obviously believe the four horse is destined to win on the grass, evidenced by her works.”

“Which is probably why one of them will win today,” I pronounced, wincing a little at what I felt would be coming next.

“No,” my Uncle Will said in his sternest voice. “That is why one of them might win today. Let us continue our research.”

He pointed to the form again. “The six has had trouble in both her starts. Certainly could improve. The seven has excellent turf breeding. The eight, nine, and ten also…” He sighed and adjusted his gold-rimmed spectacles. “In fact, it seems perhaps half of the twelve horses might be able to eke out a win. Take the number ten.”

I moved my chair around the table so I could look over his shoulder.

“The ten. A well-bred horse purchased for one hundred and fifty five thousand dollars. With four works on turf, two of them quite good. Trained by Mark Casse, one of the very best, and ridden by, ah, Paco Lopez, one of the best turf riders on the planet. fifteen to one on the morning line. I would make her to be about half that – perhaps six to one.”

I looked up at the monitors. The race was due to start in two minutes. The ten-horse, WHAT A BEAUT, was fifty-three to one.

“Holy crap,” I shouted, causing several punters at nearby tables to glare at me.

“Holy crap, indeed,” mused my Uncle Will, reaching for his leather Burberry wallet. “Here. Put twenty on her nose for me.”

What was good enough for Uncle Will was more than good enough for me. I pulled out a wrinkled five spot, matched it with a one I was saving to buy a lottery ticket, and plunked it on the number ten’s nose, along with Uncle Will’s twenty.

Then the bell rang and the horses leaped out of the gate.

Of course if the ten hadn’t done something I wouldn’t be talking about it. So here’s what the chart says about it:

WHAT A BEAUT angled inside to save ground after start, rated through backstretch racing in spread out field positioned off top two leaders, angled out path and loomed up late far turn, set down for drive racing two wide, dug in gamely and drove by.

She paid $109 to win.

Uncle Will waved to Irish, then talked with his fingers to him, ordering one for each of us and one for himself. Irish waved, poured a bit, then came over with three glasses one-third full of rich amber liquid.  Uncle Will took his and raised it.

“Here’s to bets played, money made, and charges paid,” he said, as we all clinked glasses.

He tucked a bill into Irish’s waistcoat, and the bartender touched his forehead and strode back to the bar. My Uncle Will turned to me with that rare twinkle I sometimes see in his lapis blue eyes. “Never play the maidens, do we? Especially on turf.”

“Only when we find something the crowd might have missed,” I intoned, reaching for the form. “Let’s see what’s going on in the ninth.”

“Billy, Billy, Billy,” he murmured, looking up at the Outrider’s tiled ceiling as if expecting to see some kind of message written there. “You learned a lesson today, and that’s good. The problem is, in doing that you forgot the most important lesson of all.”

“I’m sure I did,” I said absently, checking out the five-horse in the ninth. “And that is…?”

Uncle Will took the form from me, crumpled it up, walked to the trash bin by the bar, and dropped it in. He came back to the table rubbing his hands together, as if to get them clean again.

“The most important lesson, my eager young relative, is know when to quit.”

He sat down and waved at Irish again.

“Now I think I’ll have one of those excellent salads.”