D-Bone Fantasy Camp Day 4: The Track, The Delukes, The Racino

I somehow woke up before everyone but Dustin the next day, and after everyone got up and we had some eggs, bacon and toast (thanks again Amanda), we did something I decided I HAD to do when I was in Saratoga- go to the TRACK!

We rode bikes of course, and I took more pictures while riding. 

We also got to ride by this guy- a local that Dustin sees all the time and understandably laughs about- tye dye shirt and roller blades, every day. The dog got excited and he almost ate shit. I felt bad for him, but it was also pretty funny, I mean come on, look at him. 

The track was nice. 

If you don't already know, Saratoga Springs is known for pretty much only 1 thing- horse racing. It's been the heart of the town forever from what I can tell- everything there is based around horses, and judging by the amount of people here, it's all people care about. This whole trip was a learning experience, and as Dustin grew up here and had been to the track a bunch growing up, he showed us pretty much everything.  

Right when we walked in, we were stopped at a gate for horse crossing. Good lord are jockeys small. 

Shaun showing his class and clearly saying something along the lines of DUUUHHHHH

Here's a few things I learned about the track:

1. Yes, the rich people actually dress in the ridiculous clothes and especially hats that you see on TV:

2. So many people come to gamble that unless you pay for the expensive seats, you can't see anything. This is the best view we got, which was great, but still, we got lucky to get this view, and we saw the horses for 2 seconds and then had no idea who won. 

3. People have accepted that they won't be able to watch, and just go to bet. This is big. Huge. Way bigger than I ever imagined. Surrounding the entire enormous place was just giant lawn after lawn of people sitting in fold up chairs, watching TV coverage of the races just so they could bet. It blew my mind. I kept saying, "why the hell don't these idiots just watch this on tv?!" Obviously, they want to bet, and this is the only way they can.

there were thousands of people doing this

4. There is a whole language to betting, and a whole world of things to look at to consider bets. Dustin basically narrowed it down to the obvious things- odds, the jockey's record, the jockey's reputation if you know it (he actually knew names), the experience of the horse, the size of the race, placement in the race, etc. And there's actually a section where they bring the horses out to walk around and people can look at them to see what to bet on- a horse can look calm and have a strong stride, while another can stumble or look crazed. This could mean a quick burst, but if it's a longer race, you may want to bet on the calmer one, even if the jockey has a less impressive record, blah, blah, blah. There's a thousand things to consider. And then you can bet on a thousand things. Horse 8 will win, horse 12 will place, horse 2 will finish (1st, 2nd, 3rd in normal language). Horse 2 and horse 5 will get one of those, so I'll bet that they'll get something, etc. This is about the only things we considered, and I even messed up what I wanted to say when I went up and n00bed it up hard. 

money being lost

5. You can know nothing and just bet on a horse with a cool name and still win. 

Before Dustin taught me everything, I liked horse 7 in the race we were looking at- "Heart of Destiny." What a name! After Dustin's tutoring, he said that that was actually a good horse to bet on, even though the odds were 10-1. He considered horse 7 and horse 10 and 8 I think. I decided after looking at the horses walking around that I would bet that 7 would win, 11 would place, 10 would finish. After watching the race and rooting for 10 to fail so I could win my bet that she would come in 3rd, (and being disappointed that she came through and placed 2nd), I looked up to try and see what my other horses did, and while watching the replay, saw that the videotape they were reviewing to see what horse had won by an inch showed that that horse was 7- MY horse. My HEART OF DESTINY. The odds had increased to 15-1 (they change- I had no idea), and my 2 dollar bet got me like 36 bucks and change (I somehow won a little bit for me being close with horse 10 too). Woo! Thowing my arms up in celebration felt great. 

The beauty of the whole thing was that I was going to skip this race, but kept saying to Dustin, "dude, 7 is gonna win- she's got this." He said "dude, don't do that. If 7 wins, you're gonna be so pissed that you didn't bet." "Nah, it will be neat, cuz I called it." "You'll be pissed." So, at the last second, I basically ran over to get the bet in on time, and won. And Dustin ate his words in sweet irony, since he would have bet on 7 as well. SUCK ON THAT DUSTIN. 

Then I bet again and blew it. Oh well, I still left up 21 bucks. 

We rode back, showered up and went off to dinner with Dustin's parents. On the way there, we drove through some of the ugliest skies I've ever seen. There had been threats of thunderstorms for the whole weekend, and it turns out all of the possible ones all combined to form one huge one which even sent a pretty massive tornado through some homes, about 5 minutes from the Deluke household. I tried to catch some lightning pictures with my phone, and learned what phones do to pictures when lightning strikes:

quite artful if you ask me.

 I might consider it odd to visit friends you never see and then just go eat dinner at their parent's house, but Dustin's dad is completely out of his mind, and the dinner was pretty hilarious (I'm working on a video that will be posted soon and well worth the wait). 

Carolyn and the myth, the legend: Lloyd. 

We ate chips and salsa and talked while Dustin and Carolyn prepared quite a feast- sausage, peppers, a summer squash-esque dish with tomato sauce, rolls, potato salad, regular salad, and apple pie. It was all pretty delicious. Dinner conversation was both normal and completely retarded. 

Their house was absurdly nice and fancy, and there was a gorgeous piano sitting under a chandelier in the living room. I didn't even realize that Dustin's mom played, so he asked her to oblige us with something. She was, as I guess I should have expected, incredible. 

I took a better picture, but this one rules

She then forced Dustin to play. Dustin is pretty phenomenal. Since I've known him, he's always been able to destroy a piano. He started out playing dark classical sounding stuff that was all over the place.

But luckily, he was in full blown tard mode, and epic classical music turned into songs about cheerios and him singing like Pee Wee Herman.

cheerios

We all enjoyed it. 

We even did a duet together, with me attempting to sing a song I've never heard before called "Bess, You Is My Woman" or something. Just wait for the video compilation, it'll be good. It was quite the interesting night of unique performances.

We then tried to make the day even better but instead butchered the shit out of it by going to the RACINO. I like gambling. In small doses, blackjack, casino war, roulette, and texas hold 'em can be a blast. The first time I went to a casino, I just played slot machines, and they were horrible. I then learned what is actually fun. For whatever stupid reason, Saratoga is only allowed to have slot machines, and you can't even imagine how horrible of a place this was. There were 2 tables each for craps and roulette, but it was all computerized. This place was sad. 

In most cases, we didn't even get to pull the lever you see on TV- it was just pushing a button. In 1 game, Shaun put a dollar in, pushed a button, and that was it. He just sat there, desperate and confused like a child who had candy stolen right out of his hand: "wait... that was it?" It was awful.

Shaun and I proudly displaying our winnings- $1.15 combined. 

None of us ever even figured out what we were doing. I somehow lost like 9 dollars in 5 minutes of misery. Scratch tickets are a billion times more fun. I can't figure out how there was this many people here. I guess they had somehow won something. Dustin won like 10 bucks. But other than that, we were all huge pathetic losers. 

demon blur face is a high roller

Our trip to the Racino was pretty much us making variations of these faces for the entire time:

HUH!?

"PLAY AND WIN!? MY ASS"

What an interesting, full day.

currently listening to: Pierce The Veil: Selfish Machines