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#22
02-25-2012, 12:29 PM
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Continued
I have a few minutes here while there's a lull in the homecoming celebration
 .So after the intial excitment/aura of the dog track wore off (after about 3 minutes), it came to my realization that the place was a gigantic s.hithole. It made Freehold raceway look like Keenland. They were still about 90 minutes away from racing there and I only saw a handful of people, but realistically I couldn't hang around until the races started as I had to be in Lake Mary by about 1:30. More importantly, I'm not caught up on my teatnus shots and the IHOP breakfast is starting to rumble again. On the way back to I4, I spot a big Mall, I figure that I still had some time to kill, so I go in. They have this really big sports store, so I go in to buy the boys some stuff. What's the first thing I see, yup Jeremy Lin shirts and jerseys all over the place. I about face and walk out. More importantly, It's starting to become clear to me that the IHOP I had for breakfast has officially become a major situation. Thankfully for now, the mall bathroom is top notch. The rest of the day is pretty much a non-event, except for being absolutely exhausted while having to visit customers and take them out to Ruth Chris for dinner (and obviously the IHOP situation). My luck of nice bathrooms does extend with my customer's office building and the Ruth Chris steakhouse. I have no appetite as I dine and actually feel nauseous at times, but fight though. I do catch a break as my stomach cooperates on the 90 minute drive to Tampa (I guess not falling asleep on the drive is a break too). But when I finally reach my hotel room, I absolutely destroy that bitch. Then exhaustion (and probable dehydration) set in as I crash. Next up Tampa day 1 To be continued........................................
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Felix Unger talking to Oscar Madison: "Your horse could finish third by 20 lengths and they still pay you? And you have been losing money for all these years?!" 
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#23
02-25-2012, 08:32 PM
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A big thank you to all DTers and non Dters all across North America, from Woodbine to Hastings Park, to Fulla Sheets and Exacta Bob, to GPK and Bigsmc, and everyone in between. Turf was firm, track was fast, and the golf bar was set at 100 strokes.
Too much fun, didn't want it to end.
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#25
02-25-2012, 10:32 PM
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Wednesday
Wake up excited and fairly rested, unfortunately my behind continues to spew. Still have no appetite, but decide to get a cup of coffee. Go back to the room and spew some more. Finally at about 12:05, Bigs white pick-up rolls up and we're off to the track. Tampa's really the only thing running so expecting a fairly light day. We get to the track and start to cap, waiting for GPK and BT to show. Hit the first race and things couldn't be better. Bigs has us hooked up in his box. It's in the front row about 20 yards past the wire, just freakin awesome. Finally GPK and BT show up and my greatest fear is eased, I'm taller than GPK (It's really not close). I'm actually getting a little hungry now and I've heard so much about the famous Tampa Cuban sandwiches, so I decide to jump in. It's pretty good, but it had Salami on it. Since when do Cubans eat F'n salami? Regardless things are good and I'm feeling better. Until later when out of nowhere, I'm forced to check out the plumbing facilities at Tampa Bay Downs. Thankfully there were adequate. Come back just in time to get out on the last race. After a few 2 for 1's in the Grunder Bar, BT, GPK and myself go back to the hotel to check in.
GPK decides to give us an unplanned tour of the Tampa/St. Pete area on the way back to the hotel. It feels like we drive for an eternity, thankfully my colen cooperates during the journey. We check in, rest and then it's time I give the bathroom a workout for a while, then we decide to go to dinner. Honestly I'm not even hungry. But we go to some steakhouse grill type place, it was actually nice. GPK falls in love with the hostess. I guess she was ok, but the thing that really made his heart pump, was that she was shorter than him. Then he proceeds to order french fries as an appitizer. Who the f.uck has ever heard of something so stupid? French Fries, really? I'm not hungry so I give him a pass. The three of us are enjoying our meal, when out of nowhere some random 70 something year old woman stops at our table and starts to chat us up. She really looks like she just escaped from a mental hospital and just continues to blabber as me and BT just shake our head in amazement. I think GPK is digging her, but she's way to tall for him. Finally the rest of the golden girls at the bar corral their friend and she's out of our hair. It really was a comical scene. We thought about messing with them, but decided it was a play against. We discuss if we should go out at that point, but it's late and we're golfing very early in the morning. We decide to call it a night, but not before having to take BT to get beer. He says he needs it to handicap  .To be continued............
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Felix Unger talking to Oscar Madison: "Your horse could finish third by 20 lengths and they still pay you? And you have been losing money for all these years?!" Last edited by MaTH716 : 02-25-2012 at 11:15 PM.
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#27
02-25-2012, 11:07 PM
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Quote:
__________________
Felix Unger talking to Oscar Madison: "Your horse could finish third by 20 lengths and they still pay you? And you have been losing money for all these years?!"
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#28
02-25-2012, 11:18 PM
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 Tears from laughing so hard. No expanded details on the events in Grunder Bar?
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#29
02-26-2012, 07:21 AM
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Quote:
__________________
Felix Unger talking to Oscar Madison: "Your horse could finish third by 20 lengths and they still pay you? And you have been losing money for all these years?!"
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#30
02-26-2012, 07:54 AM
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Thursday
We are up at the crack of dawn to Golf. I'm exhausted as I worn out a path in the carpet running from my bed to the bathroom. It was a very long night. GPK bitches and moans that I kept him up with my snoring, but every time I went to the bathroom he was passed out. Thankfully we find the golf course fairly easily after a brief stop at Starbucks. I refrain from getting coffee, but that doesn't stop me from visiting the facillities at the golf course. I failed to mention that my streak of bathroom runs had come to an end at the steakhouse the night before. The patrons were very nice though, giving me a standing ovtion as I walked out of the restauraunt.
Golf was a good time, It was GPK, Herk and Bigs in the first group and Me, BT and Rude in the second. I know I suck at golf and I'm okay with it. I was actually impressed with BT, he hits the ball great in between eating cigarettes and drinking beer. Rude on the other hand is more my level. It was a great time and the sun never came out, making it feel very comfortable. Other than Rude hitting a couple of perpendicular shots (sorry Dan), the higlight for me was shooting a legit 46 (must have been a payback from God for making me piss out of my ass for the last 48 hours) on the back after flirting with 60 on the front. But it was a great time and even better we realize that after some rain late yesterday that they will be running on the turf at Tampa. We are on the way. To be contined...................
__________________
Felix Unger talking to Oscar Madison: "Your horse could finish third by 20 lengths and they still pay you? And you have been losing money for all these years?!"
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#31
02-26-2012, 08:10 AM
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Great Scav's like story telling and this is going great.
Glad I didn't join you as together we would have tilted the Florida sewage system out of control. Now, if you in-laws show up in the story I think we have some sort of award coming to you. Keep it coming.... Spyder
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Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things.
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#32
02-26-2012, 08:18 AM
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any doubts of GPK actually being a golf pro were erased on day 1, as he hits only 3 bad shots all day and recovers from one of them to shoot a 2 over 74 with borrowed clubs
Bigs and I are on the opposite end of the spectrum, but Bigs gets props for using a ball that is painted blue green and yellow.
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#33
02-26-2012, 08:37 AM
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#34
02-26-2012, 08:51 AM
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It happens as soon as we reach the Track, we meet the immortal Exacta Bob. In an added bonus we meet Mrs. Exacta Bob too. They are really very nice people, but honestly the Mrs. didn't pick her head up out of her book the entire time we were there. I'm actually feeling fairly good and go for another of those fugazi Cuban sandwiches. Later I even feel well enough to get some ice cream, things are looking up. I'm under th gun here a bit trying to cap on the fly. For me personally the day is a bloodbath. I end up going 3/4 on like 3 pick fours between Tampa and Gulfstream. I don't cash a ticket all day.
The group for Thursday is Myself, Bigs, Rude, Herk, BT, GPK, Heels shows up and Exacta Bob. I find Herk to be absolutely amazing. I have never seen a guy who is constantly live to price horses before in my life. If Norm McDonald, the Dali Lama and Rain Man had a baby, it would be Herk. He's so mellow and doesn't get excited about anything. He punches the wrong ticket and it's like awww shucks. It was amazing to watch, not only was he live to prices, they all ran well. I'm not saying they all won, but it seemed like if he wasn't winning he was real close. The kicker was he seemed to look at each horse in the form for like 4 seconds before forming an opinion. It was the damdest thing. The guy just kept going to the window, I was very impressed. Heels is no slouch either, he seemed to be live to everything too. I think he cashed a few nice tickets as well. Unfortunately his luck ended when BT saw what was going on and he tried to jump on the Heels train, I think BT derailed it. But it did seem like Heels had some pretty good opinions going on. Everyone did their thing, some went to play cards, but we all had a ball. It really was an awesome day. Bigs and Rude were pointing out all the trainers sitting around us and trying to give us the lowdown on all the little Tampa angles. I'll never toss a Bernie Rhone horse ever again at Tampa. At one point Bigs and I saw Tom Proctor right after Guidry gave another stellar ride, he closed ay to late like a frieght train getting up for 2nd. You would think that Proctor would be pissed, but there he was yukking it up like he just won a graded stake. Him and his fat ass was sitting back in a chair and was rocking and shimmying in the chair and pumping his arm like he was changing gears in a low rider or maybe he was just having a seizure from Guidry's ride. But it was a sight to see and I had tears coming from my eyes. That happened a lot on this trip. It was just a group of great guys that are a lot of fun to be around, I had a ball. But the laughing was just starting. Live racing was over and we were heading back to the Grunder bar and the beginning of the show parlay....................... to be continued.................
__________________
Felix Unger talking to Oscar Madison: "Your horse could finish third by 20 lengths and they still pay you? And you have been losing money for all these years?!"
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#35
02-26-2012, 08:54 AM
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. But that's cause the midget nazi golf police made us play from the f.uckin blues. What a dick!
__________________
Felix Unger talking to Oscar Madison: "Your horse could finish third by 20 lengths and they still pay you? And you have been losing money for all these years?!"
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#36
02-26-2012, 08:56 AM
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"Oh, I can hit this fade better then you" and "Oh I can stick this sand wedge a foot away cause I'm that good" type stuff My guy Bigs puts a hurtin on the ball, and some local houses too.
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#39
02-26-2012, 08:25 PM
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Thursday continued
Ok, back from the emergency room where they think I have Salmonella poisoning. A couple of bags of IV and I'm almost as good as new. I should have seen if they could have replaced my a.sshole, this one I have must be burnt out by now.
After the races on Thursday the crew (Myself, Bigs, GPK, Heels, BT, Rude and I want to say Herk) return to the Grunder bar at beautiful Tampa Bay Downs. I failed to mention that one day earlier while we were there, we were entertained by quite a show with the star being BT. He was betting the lovely Dover Downs and the Meadows (I think there might have even been a dog race or two involved) on the absolute blind while babbling like a complete maniac. You would ask him "Bri, what do you have here" and his response would be something like "2,6,with 1,2,3,4,7,9,11,12" and we would be like "what?" and he would just look at you like you were the crazy one. And of course there was the yelling at tv's. It all came together very nicely. I have to admit that I have never been so entertained at a racetrack without ever having a dollars worth of action. So we were back on Thursday with real tracks running and a bigger crew. Grunder himself is in the house and Bigs works on him to do a number on the Ed O'Bey race the following day. Bigs said it was in the bag, especially since Bigs bought Grunder a beer. I get the feeling if Bigs bought him two, GPK probably could have called the race. We start one of many show parlays during this wonderful trip. We have a wide selection of tracks and basically just trying to find a decent chalk to hit the board. Did I mention that we were doing this totally on the blind? Basically we would come up with a horse (usually odds on) and then yell like comple f'n mental patients at the TV as the race was going on. You know those guys we all hate at the track? That was us on this occasion every 4 minutes. We would be screaming at the tv trying to get 3/5 shots to hit the board. It really was quite a scene. In one particular race from Penn National our horse looked dead on the backstretch, the jock was already pumping his mount and was wide to boot. When out of nowhere BT (whom with his hair, beard and gigantic sunglasses looked like Alan from the hangover, hence all those references you have heard in the past few days) said "no reason to worry, that's how winners are ridden at Penn National". An absolute roar went up from the group and sure enough the horse won going away. That would become our rallying cry whenever one of our horses were in trouble. I also saw him lose a sandal making believe to kick out the plugs on a harness nag he had bet. The kid put on an absolute show, he's a star in my eyes. But if I didn't know him I would call the mental institution and try to commit him. We started with $60 bucks and we had it up to about $240, when we selected a race that we all actually handicapped. I think it was the 7th or 8th at Santa Anita with Nakatani up for Assmussen at 3/5. It really was a very weak endorsment from the group, some guys actually wanted to stop and use the winning to pay for dinner at the Wicked Kilt. We never looked like a winner the entire race and when it was over you would think we lost about 10 grand, there was silence. Not only that, a whole bunch of us got knocked out of the pick 4 in that race too. Next thing we know we see GPK shoulder cappin the Meadowlands over some old guys shouder that he's chattin up, so we shower him with some abuse for a while. I actually couldn't believe that he was tall enough to see. But we gave it to him good and it perked everyone right up again. It really was non stop hilarity and I had tears from my eyes many times. Finally it was time to leave and more comedy ensued. It took us 10 minutes to get out of the track as every door was locked as we tried to vacate the premises. Finally we got out and it was Tilted Kilt time. We all get out of the cars at the TK and BT is hit up by this woman with a young girl and a baby for money saying they were homeless. BT kicks a few bucks to the woman, but the WTF look and his face said it all. It actually was a very sad situation, if indeed they were telling the truth. We walk in and there was some real talent working there. The place was fairly crowded. I thought our waitress was OK, but she seemed like a real bitch. Maybe that's cause we asked for sperate checks (by the way who did that?). I'm happy to report that this would be the second establishment on the trip where I didn't piss out of my ass. Also this is where we would meet up with Lori (Antitrust). I think Lori enjoyed the TK more than everyone else combined. Her head was on a freakin swivel. She was having a grand ole time and I thought we were going to have trouble getting her out of there. It really was a pretty uneventful dinner. Most of us were shot from the day and knew that we had a really big one on tap for Friday. It would be Triple day............... To be continued..............................
__________________
Felix Unger talking to Oscar Madison: "Your horse could finish third by 20 lengths and they still pay you? And you have been losing money for all these years?!"
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#40
02-26-2012, 09:54 PM
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Holy Crap Matt (pun intended) you're one tough mofo. I didn't hear one complaint out of you the whole time.
Looking forward to the Taj Mahal buffet description, you were brave to tackle that beast after what you went through.
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