And They're Off. . .

When the day started, I had no idea that I would be sitting in the stands at Canterbury Park in the afternoon. . . but the chain of events happened like this: after church services this morning, Peder and Sarah came over to take me out to lunch for my birthday. It was so much fun seeing them again You'd think that I would see them more often than I do, but they are busy, and sometimes I am too, so I relish the times when it works out!

On our way to the restaurant, I mentioned that we would be very close to Canterbury Park, the home of horse racing in Minnesota, built in the area where Dan Patch was stabled in the early 1900's. That's when Peder and Sarah informed me that they were planning on going to the races in the afternoon. Well, that sounded like something I have wanted to do for a long time, so I asked if I could join them. Maybe they didn't know how to say "No" to me, but they didn't, and so the three of us novices went to the horse races together.

Not knowing how to wager, we looked at some of the stats of the horses and jockeys in each of the ten races. For the first three races, I based my bet on the horse's name and the color of the shirt of the jockey - not too smart, but like I said, I'm new at this.

By the end of the third race, I paid more attention to some of the stats, and moments before the fourth race, I changed my horse from Imitate to Attorney at Law. As "lady luck" would have it, Imitate won the race, but Attorney at Law came in second. Since my bet was to "place", I won anyway - a whopping $14.00. This was for a $5.00 bet - my highest of the day. Had I stayed with Imitate, I would have won $18.50. So I played one more race. In that event Peder's horse took first, Sarah's horse won second, and mine came in fourth (no money won on that one for me). So the afternoon cost me a total of $4.00 - - $3 for admission, and $1 in the loss column.

One of the best parts for me was the bugler. But as Peder said, "He should be good, he only has to know one song!"