And They're Off!

This Friday, April 9, is opening day for the Emerald Downs 2010 live racing season. I had a hell of a year in 2009 - didn't get to the track as often as I would have liked, but every single visit was a winner. I think I've finally got an unbeatable system. Nothing can possibly go wrong! The 75th running of the Longacres Mile is on Sunday August 22, with a slightly scaled-back purse of $250,000, down from last year's record of 300 grand. At the other end of the financial spectrum, pints of beer are only $1.50 every Friday night after July 4th. The season runs until September 26.

Post-Modernism

by James Galvin

A pinup of Rita Hayworth was taped
To the bomb that fell on Hiroshima.
The Avant-garde makes me weep with boredom.
Horses are wishes, especially dark ones.

That's why twitches and fences.
That's why switches and spurs.
That's why the idiom of betrayal.
They forgive us.

Their windswayed manes and tails,
Their eyes,
Affront the winterscrubbed prairie
With gentleness.

They live in both worlds and forgive us.
I'll give you a hint: the wind in fits and starts.
Like schoolchildren when the teacher walks in,
The aspens jostle for their places

And fall still.
A delirium of ridges breaks in a blue streak:
A confusion of means
Saved from annihilation

By catastrophe.
A horse gallops up to the gate and stops.
The rider dismounts.
Do I know him?

Above is one of many splendid photos of Emerald Downs by Andy Repcik. Thanks!