Somehow, Vic wasn't surprised when he read the racing results on the latest Daily Racing Form he'd just bought at a newspaper kiosk, which showed that the horse he bet on to win, Silver Daddy, came in a distant third.

He trudged along the Seattle streets in a pelting rain on his way home, brooding about this latest little setback in his fortunes. From now on, he told himself, he'd only rely on his own handicapping skills and never again listen to tips from Sam, or anyone else. He kicked himself for being suckered into making that bet, but Sam sounded so damn convincing this time. It was "the surest of sure things", Sam told him, because he heard it "from the trainer" that they were going to fire Silver Daddy in yesterday's fifth race; a horse just coming off a claim and switching to the top jockey on the grounds. Sam already owed him almost $300, but finagled Vic to loan him another fifty. Vic gave him a $100 and told him to put down fifty to win for him too.

In his apartment, Vic cracked open a beer and flopped down on the easy chair; the end of yet another long, hard work week in the shipyards. He thought about calling Liz and inviting her out to dinner, but was too tired to do so. They'd see each other the next day at the track anyway.

He broke open the Form while eating some reheated pizza at the kitchen table. As he browsed the card, a horse in the seventh race named Shifty Native grabbed his attention. He vividly recalled being at the track a few weeks before when Shifty made a big move in the stretch, but got a bad ride from the jockey and ended up third. In this race, Shifty was running its preferred distance, six furlongs, and it also had a favorable jockey change.

The more he handicapped the other horses in the race, the more it looked like Shifty was sitting on a win. That old feeling of confidence about a horse came back again; the same one he had when he first started going to the track almost seven years before and had been consistently picking winners. He circled the name on the Form and then handicapped the other races. 

Vic sat in the racetrack bar pounding his fist on the table as he watched the first race on the TV monitor. Across the table, Liz was screaming like a banshee. One of their horses in the first race of the Daily Double, Little Ruthie, closed with a rush and won by a half-length.

"It won!  It won!" Liz yelled.

"Yeah, I didn't think the old gal would do it," Vic said.

"This could be our day, baby," she gushed. "Just like the first time."

"Looks like Ruthie ended up with some good odds too, at 8-1," he said, as he read the monitor.

"It'll be a nice payoff if one of our horses comes in the next race."

Liz stood up and grabbed her purse. "Could you order me another Bloody Mary, my king?" she said, in a regal voice. "While I go refresh myself."

Vic leaned against the racetrack railing before the seventh race and gazed at the snowcapped dome of Mount Rainier in the south. This was a spot he'd been to many times before - right in front of the Finish Line and next to the Winners' Enclosure - starting when he began going to the track about seven years before. He called it his Lucky Spot because it seemed he was able to pick out winners after hanging out here first. Cashing winning tickets seemed to be a lot easier back then, and so he hoped he could turn his luck around today by being at his lucky spot again. 

He opened the Form and studied the next race. The horse he handicapped the day before to win, Shifty Native, had a lot of speed but front runners had been backing up all day so he was looking for a closer. One of those was the number seven horse: Eradicator. Lately, it had been coming up short but was dropping in class today and facing lesser competition. Because of that, he decided to switch his bet and put his last $20 on Eradicator. He and Liz were down by almost $100, so putting the $20 in Eradicator's teeth at the current 7-1 odds would put them a little ahead for the he day if it won.

There were just a few patrons in front of him at the betting window line, and once again he recalled the strong feeling he had about Shifty the night before. On the other hand, he'd been watching cheap speed hold on in sprints the whole day; a simple fucking fact that he just couldn't ignore.

Liz was sucking on a Bloody Mary with droopy eyelids as he approached their table in the bar.

"Think it'll win?" she asked.

"I switched to the seven horse."

"How come?"

"Just a hunch."

Shifty Native sprinted clear at once, leading by three lengths at the first call. As they approached the far turn, a group of three horses made a move but Shifty still had a two-length lead. As they hit the top of the stretch, Eradicator moved up to third. At the sixteenth pole, Eradicator closed to second but then seemed to hang up a little in the drive. Now Vic felt that all-to-familiar Loser's Doubt envelop him like a dark and heavy shroud.

Vic stared at the TV monitor as the horses crossed the finish line, and then got a sickly feeling. It was the worst possible outcome. Shifty Native somehow hung on to win by a head-bob over Eradicator. Even worse, he just realized that he didn't put an exacta bet on the race. He handicapped the full field of twelve down to those two horses, and an exacta box would have covered their 1-2 finish either way. He told himself not to look at the payoffs.

Across the table, Liz glared at him as if he was the biggest loser in the joint. Wordlessly, she stood up and headed towards the ladies' room. He sloshed down his drink, set the cup down, and glared at his scowling image in the smudgy mirror on a nearby wall

He couldn't help it and glanced up to the monitor. The 4-7 exacta paid $145 on a $2 bet. He would've had the exacta five times if he boxed those two horses and collected over… $700.

Christ.

Just then, that sickly feeling morphed into a dull and radiating pain, centered in his gut. He sucked loudly on the straw in his drink. Still, the pain would not abate and all of a sudden he felt a genuine urge to weep. The track had beaten him down all year - actually, for many years - and he often felt a little depressed after a losing day, but never as bad as this. This gut-punch loss had finally put him to his knees and in touch all the misery he'd been suppressing over the years: the countless hours he'd been going to the track the past decade, at the expense of his marriage, the friends he once had, and his career on the newspaper.

The drink shook in his hand. He crunched on ice cubes from the cup, closed his eyes, and took a long deep breath. This can't go on.  It has to stop… and then it hit him with a burst of clarity. "I have to stop going to the track," he whispered into the empty cup, and in a voice that came from deep within.

Almost immediately, the urge to weep diminished. Yes, perhaps it was just that simple; he'd stop going to the track. He felt good about the oath he'd just whispered, and told himself that it would be for a long, long time. Maybe forever. There were only two weeks left in the meet, and he'd stayed away from the track for longer periods than that; however, it also meant that he'd have to avoid those on-line betting sites. He knew that he could do it. He had to do it.

Now his mood shifted to one of pure exhilaration. It was as if he'd just received a Message From Above, showing him The Way to escape the soul-numbing lifestyle he'd been sinking into for so long.

Liz sauntered back to the table with a peppy grin.

"Let's go," he said.

He crumbled up the Racing Form into a ball and tossed it in the direction of a garbage can as they walked away. He missed.