The number of fatal injuries to horses at Santa Anita is an unfolding catastrophe – another in the Breeders’ Cup could conceivably spell the end of racing in California
On 18 October 1973, I had a bet on a horse at a racecourse for the first time. Well, strictly speaking, my dad backed the horse for me, as I was eight years old at the time. Moolahs Memory was an 80-1 outsider and ran like it, though he did beat one of his 11 opponents to the wire. A couple of races later, I picked out another outsider, Kings Flier. He sounded fast – and finished second. The place payoff at 13-1 meant I left the course feeling rich beyond dreams.
In hindsight, it was perhaps a more formative moment than it might have seemed at the time. I never forgot the name of either horse, which is why I can be so sure of the date. When my job took me back to the same track 39 years later, there they were in the official form book, on a Thursday afternoon at the fall meet in 1973. My memory was spot on about the $13 payoff, too.
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