JC / Railbird

Readings Archive

Readings: Nack

“Pincay thought he had won his first Kentucky Derby. Before him stretched the emptiness of the racetrack. He was in front and handriding, his whip uncocked and at his side. As they all came to the five-sixteenths pole, Turcotte looked ahead and saw Sham and thought he was running very easily and wondered for a moment if he could catch him. Already the move had lasted three-quarters of a mile, and in it Secretariat had run every quarter mile faster than the preceding quarter — the first in 0:25 1/5, the second around the clubhouse turn in 0:24, the third down the backside in 0:23 4/5, and now he was rushing through the fourth quarter at the rate of 0:23 2/5. Through it all, Turcotte had remained a figure of patience in a whirl of motion, his actions deliberate, his timing precise, his earliest instincts sound. He had ridden with an insight into the momentum of the race and the way the colt had been responding to it, sensitive to the scope of the move and to the possibilities it implied if it were left alone to run its course. And that was what he had done — he was confident it would leave him close to the lead at the turn for home — and now they were racing past the five-sixteenths pole and he measured Shecky Greene, saw Sham, and decided he had waited long enough. He was hand-riding, pumping on the colt, when he first chirped to him. Nothing happened, so he chirped again. Nothing happened again. Turcotte cocked his stick, turning it up, like the stave of a picador arming himself, and flashed it in front of Secretariat’s right eye, and that was when he felt the surge of power, suddenly, as if there’d been a change of gears.” — From “Secretariat: The Making of a Champion,” by William Nack

Posted in Readings on May 4, 2006

Readings: White

“What about the first horse I ever bet on? That was in Lexington, Kentucky, where I had gone to seek my fortune in an atmosphere favorable to the competitive spirit. (I had held three or four jobs around New York that winter, but they were prosy things at best and I felt I was losing my fine edge so I got out.) My first horse was a female named Auntie May. She was an odd-looking animal and an eleven-to-one shot, but there was this to be said for her — she came in first…. Kentucky was lovely that spring. I got twenty-two dollars from the contest and would have let it go at that if I had not chanced to fall in with some insatiable people who were on their way to Louisville to enter other contests. I went along with them. It seems I got hooked in Louisville. The Derby was a little too big for me, I guess. Easy come, easy go. But I didn’t quit. I was temporarily without money but I still had a sonnet or two up my sleeve. After the race I returned to my hotel (I didn’t say I was registered there, I said I returned to my hotel) and wrote a fourteen-line tribute to Morvich, the winning horse, and later that evening sold it to a surprised but accommodating city editor. If you will look in the Louisville Herald for Sunday, May 14, 1922, you will find my sonnet and see how a young, inexperienced man can lose a horse race but still win enough money to get out of town.” — From “The Life Triumphant,” by E.B. White

Posted in Readings on May 3, 2006

Readings: Barich II

“Losers walking around with money in their pockets are always dangerous, not to be trusted. Some horse always reaches out and grabs them. In my case it was Plumb Dumb Bandit, sixth race, June 8, five furlongs on the turf. There was something about the way she looked, the feeling I got as she crossed over the main track and planted her hoofs confidently on the turf course. Confidently? How could I be falling into that trap again? On the other hand, how could the mare be going off at thirteen to one? She had three thirds in four starts, was five years old and Kentucky-bred; I was captured by the heartwarming suspicion that if her entire racing history were spread out before me, instead of just the most recent portion given in the Form, I’d discover in her past a victory or two in the grass. Yes, I was convinced she was a turf horse (anyone could see it), and I made my bet and watched her move confidently from seventh to first to take the race, winning by an indisputable length and returning $26.80. I won’t say how much I collected, but it brought me close to even again, or maybe a little better, which meant, of course, that I had to make further bets to break the stalemate. The process is endless, I thought happily, endless.” — From “Laughing in the Hills,” by Bill Barich

Posted in Readings on February 14, 2006

Readings: Barich I

“All week long I kept winning. It had nothing to do with systems, I was just in touch. When I walked through the grandstand I projected the winner’s aura, blue and enticing. Women smiled openly as I passed. I drank good whiskey and ate well. One night I went to a Japanese restaurant and sat at a table opposite Country Joe McDonald, the singer who’d been a fixture at rallies in the sixties. Joe had a new wife with him, and a new baby who refused to sit still and instead threw an order of sushi around the room. A chunk of tuna flew past my ear. Even this seemed revelatory, the domestic roundness of a star’s life, his interrupted meal, carrying the baby crying into the night, and I knew that someday soon Tuna or Seaweed or Riceball would appear on the menu at Golden Gate and I’d play the horse and win. Things fleshed themselves out before my eyes. In a liquor store I bought two bottles of Sapporo Black and went back to sit on the Terrace steps and listen to my upstairs neighbor’s piano exercises, the dusky fastness of ivory. This tune, I thought, will never end.” — From “Laughing in the Hills,” by Bill Barich

Posted in Readings on January 18, 2006