The Ponies

We are presently in the midst of horse racing's vaunted Triple Crown season. It's the only five weeks of the year that the erstwhile sport of kings garners anything like the mainstream attention it once had as one of the few acceptable outlets for the American gambler. Lest it sound as if I'm knocking the sport, I hasten to add that I'm at least a casual fan. It's difficult to take more interest in it than that given the few people I know who have any interest, not to mention the serious problems which threaten the sport's long-term viability.

It's not the racetrack's travails which interest me, though. I prefer to talk about what I like. The flip side of horse racing's limited modern appeal is the way in which it harkens back to the past in several ways. I like the feel of tradition and antiquity it has. Horse racing venues, in the United States, anyway, seem to largely be fairly old. Even the more recently built and refurbished ones are of a classical style. They tear down baseball stadiums, but at least they leave alone grand old racing facilities by and large. I suppose that some are lost, but not as an expense of newer ones.

The acts of devotion to the sport transport me in feeling to its golden age. In following it, I feel close to personal heroes who frequented the track, to anonymous bettors of the Depression or perhaps the post-war years. To clutch a racing form, to analyze the data and form a strategy for turning a few dollars into many on the back of an animal as strong and fast as it is beautiful- the idea of it lifts me up and sets me down in that earlier era. One could get a shoe shine, a shave and head to work on some street car or driving a huge Packard, looking resplendent while wearing a fedora and a brown checkered suit.

There remain those die-hard fans who will still be talking horses, trainers and jockeys in six weeks, and I think the world of such people. The likelihood is that I myself will move on, devoting myself to the Boys of Summer along with my interests outside of the sporting world. A year or two ago I convinced myself that I would jump into it whole hog and stay for the long haul, but it's no more a realistic prospect for in this than it was for comic books- a person just can't make themself like something more than they do. I guess it's a little like George Carlin's bit about not having hobbies, but having interests because they're free.