A Hurricane and a Horse

A hurricane and a horse

Not meaning to downgrade the importance of being prepared for Hurricane Sandy, every time I hear reports of a hurricane coming I’m reminded of one that cost my Aunt and I over $250.00 that never came.  It has to do with a horse-racing story. 

I was brought up by my paternal grandparents in Astoria, a suburb of New York City, after my mother died at the age of 29 from complications of childbirth following the birth of my younger sister.    Two years after my grandmother died in 1931 my grandfather retired and built - with the help of some friends - a little bungalow in Lindenhurst, Long Island.  The building materials cost all of $2,200.  My cousin, Kitty, two years my senior, was also being taken care of by my grandfather so off we went to Lindenhurst in time for Kitty and I to start school in September.  One year later my Aunt Grace and Uncle Tom came with their two year old daughter, Jacquelynn, Tom died not long after.

With those details behind me, I’ll get to the story I want to tell.  When my grandfather suffered his first heart attack in 1939, Jerry, our barber, used to come to the house to cut his hair while he was recuperating.  Jerry was a real racing fan – the horses, and was getting my grandfather and my aunt and me interested.  The girls had other interests.  Jerry was telling us about all the things to look for in the Racing Form and the kind of systems he would follow to “dope things out.”  It wouldn’t be too much later that our basement would be a library of Racing Tabs, Man-O-War tout sheets and whatever.  There was a bookie in town that would take quarter bets.  The pari-mutual payoffs were, and still are, based on wagers of two dollars.  A twenty five cent wager on a winner netted one eighth of the pari-mutual payoff by the bookie.  I soon became the runner for my aunt and grandfather’s bets and also placed my own when I had the money.  Having good street smarts as a young teenage kid, whenever I would go to Izzy’s poolroom to place the day’s wagers and not see a paper in sight I would know that the word was out that the State snoops were in town and I wouldn’t even approach Izzy.  The local police had more important things to be concerned about than worrying about the harmless past-time of people betting on the races.  I would just saunter around and leave.  

After returning from Tripoli in 1946 where I worked as a cryptographer with a wing of the Army Air Corps called the AACS - Army Airways  Communications System – I bought a little old 1928 rumble seat Model A Ford with winnings I had from a fantastic run of cards I had in the final month and a half I was overseas.  There was a federal program underway at that time called the 52-20 club.  It gave veterans $20.00 a week for 52 weeks or until they found work. 

I would get my check out of the box at the Post-Office and invariably get home and say to my aunt working at the kitchen sink, “Let’s go.”  There are many racing stories to tell about but there’s always one that comes to mind when I hear warnings about a hurricane.  It’s about one that’s associated with the hurricane that never came. 

We were sitting in the grandstand at Jamaica Race-track this one day; my aunt with her fifty cent Racing Form and I with mine, quietly, silently, doping things out.  Once in awhile we would point out something to one another that we thought was worth taking note of.  I couldn’t separate two horses, Whatucallum and Deep Texas, and couldn’t make up my mind who I liked better.  Then I saw a horse by the name of Equate who had an impressive workout – four furlongs in 48 seconds - and decided that that was my play.  He was 25-1 on the board.  When I knew my aunt had her mind made up I stood up and said, “Who ya got?”  She said, “Equate.”…“Me too.  The workout, right?”…”Yeah.” I took her two dollars and went and placed the bets.                 

It was a six furlong race with the horses starting at the back of the back stretch.  From the time they broke from the starting gate Equate was close up.  In the final eighth of a mile he left the pack in the dust and won going away.  It was a thrilling finish.  He paid $56.00.  My aunt and I agreed that the horse was in tip-top shape and we vowed that we’d be here again for his next outing.  We figured we’d still get pretty good odds. 

And now for the climax of the story.  About ten days later we see Equate listed in the first race at Jamaica with morning line odds of 8-1.  But the news reports are raging about a hurricane that’s coming.  With each report they’re getting more and more intense.  We came to the conclusion that there surely wouldn’t be racing if the storm was coming and decided not to go.  My little tin-can, 20 year old, model-A Ford, that had a top speed of 35 miles per hour would be blown off the road.  I decided to spend the day white-washing the unfinished basement walls with a process my younger brother and I was using that he showed me when I was living with my father and siblings in North Arlington, New Jersey for twenty months.  We used to go house-to-house to see if people wanted their trees white-washed.  While I was working I heard the radio report that the races started at Jamaica and they came on with the result of the first race.  The winner was Equate.  I thought to myself, “Well, he might not pay that much seeing as how he won so impressively the last time out.”  I all but collapsed when the race was declared official a few minutes later and they gave the prices.  He paid $129.00.  I vowed from that day on that I would never let a weather report stop me from going ahead with my plans.  The horse must have been stepping up in class to pay that price.  My aunt and I probably would have played him win and place or across the board if we had been there, considering the odds.  He must have been listed on the board at odds of 60-1.  We would never put a horse with that price into a daily-double.  We might if he was in the second race.  We’d still have a chance to play him if our horse in the first race lost.       

If Equate had been going in a later race we very likely would have placed a bet with the bookie once we realized they were running the races.  We could at least have been able to get odds of 30-1.  That was the limit the bookies paid.