The Daily Racing Form Vs. the Bible

Step off the "wheel of work," for awhile, and ideas come flooding in. Suddenly, you have time to think, to do the things you love to do. It was that kind of day, yesterday. I kicked around town, took a day off from running, meditated on a bench at the park, went to the local used CD store, browsed through other folk's discards, picked up some classic music (The Grateful Dead in Europe 1972, the Stones at Madison Square Garden in 1969, Pink Floyd at their Psychedelic best, Led Zeppelin deep into their avant-garde metal experiments).

I studied a copy of the Daily Racing Form as a form of leisure. I thought about Nick Tosches and his rant on the Bible, how it is a great work of human imagination, meaning - written by men, (I understand in some quarters "them's is fighting words!"), but the Bible clearly is not the "word of god," unless you want to consider any work of imagination the "word of god," so in that case, "Catch 22," and "Moby Dick," and "The Lord of the Rings," would serve just as well. Can you imagine swearing an oath on "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," in a court of law?

The Daily Racing Form might be closer to what the "word of god," would be like, if it too wasn't just men trying to make sense of events of the world. Take a race at Canterbury Park (think Chaucer), and find the truth, the wisdom, the power and the glory in simple notations on paper. This is a bible that just tries to state the "facts." No myth, no parables, no commandments, just descriptions of "what happened." Now that's a bible you can believe in!

Shakopee is a horse running in a one mile turf race for fillies and mares, three years old and upwards. The purse is $40,000. Now you can find that this filly was sired by Evansville Slew (his father was Slew City Slew) and you just know that there's a connection to the great Seattle Slew somewhere in her bloodlines. You can see the history of this filly for the last ten races of her existence, you can see she likes to run on, or just slightly off, the lead, she's won two races out of ten for her career. You can see her times broken into quarters :22 at the quarter pole, 1:09 at the finish of a six furlong dash.

You can find what kind of medication she's on, who she's raced against, whether she likes the dirt, the turf, the mud, etc. Then there a few poetic descriptors that give you a flavor of a race: bobbled, hustled, never menaced, went clear, held sway, shook clear, weakened, forced pace, dueled, gave way, etc. It's all there. But of course it isn't. So much information and so little. What's left out, is probably as important as what's noted. And ain't that the truth too?

This is a bible that doesn't lie, it gives you some info, (is it important or not?), and then it's all up to you. What will you do? There ain't no god looking over your shoulder, god ain't on your side, you don't have no rule book (no stone tablet lugged down from the mountain) that explains it all. It's all up to you, what are you gonna do, how will you live your life, what will you make of it, are you gonna bet that filly, or take a pass, are you gonna burn some cash on a silly horse race, will this be the pony that leads you to the promised land, does past performance give a clue to the future, is there anything new under the sun, what's gonna happen today, and really "are you feeling lucky, punk?" There's no one to petition, no higher power to appeal to, as Philip Dick once said, "you are the authority!" The Daily Racing Form is a bible that empowers!