Today I had the pleasure of accompanying my grandmother to the Keeneland horse racing track. It is Homecoming weekend at Eastern Kentucky University and my grandmother, a 1947 graduate (and former Miss Eastern - but don't tell her I told you!), purchased a table for four for the alumni event at Keeneland. Our table consisted of my grandmother, my mother (class of 1972), myself, and our friend Judy.
It was a beautiful day in Lexington - the sun was shining for the first time in many days, so we started the day in the best spirits. We set out for a fun day at the track and indeed a fun day was had by all!
I'm not really much of a gambler. I can go to the track and have a nice time without betting on a single race. Today I figured I would participate and bet on at least a couple of races. We got there quite early so I had plenty of time to read the racing program. I decided to try something new: the exacta box, I believe it was called. With this I chose 3 horses with the hope that 2 of the 3 would come in 1st and 2nd. Betting the minimum $1 resulted in a total bet of $6 ($1 for each possible combination).
I bet the exacta box in each of the first three races. In the first race my $6 bet paid $11.60, in the second race my $6 bet paid $20.50, but my luck ran out in the third race when a stray horse made it into either the 1st or 2nd winning position. I sat out the fourth race just because I wasn't feeling a particular horse or combo of horses. I ended up not placing another bet, but $12 up for the day was not bad!
My mother, on the other hand, was getting quite a few losing tickets each of which she promptly tore into bits. She had two tickets for the fourth race - one for herself and one for her husband. She thought both were losing tickets and tore them up and placed the bits with all of the other bits from the previous losing tickets.
If you're thinking "One of those tickets from Race 4 was a winner" you are correct!
So I proceeded to go through all of the little bits to try to piece them back together. Every time someone walked past the table the little bits of paper would jump into the air and rearrange themselves. Thankfully I eventually found all of the pieces to the one winning ticket and completed the puzzle. But how would we get them to the cashier window? Can you believe no one had a roll of Scotch tape or a glue stick on them? Unbelievable!
That's where the lip balm came in. It was just sticky enough to keep the paper bits in place for transport to the ticket window without flying about.
That ticket paid $40!
I asked my mother to please not tear up anymore tickets! Good thing because her next winning ticket paid $54. That win even elicited a little jig of a dance on her return to the table.
We stayed through the seventh race in which no one in our table of 4 had a winning ticket, at which time we concluded there was no better time to call it a day than when everyone was either up or breaking even. Yes, we had a good time. A good time in deed!
Oh, by the way, I got a $5 tip for reassembling the ripped up winning ticket. That brought my total "winnings" up to about $17. Not bad if I say so myself!
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