Why I love the Preakness

Playing the ponies is a mug's game. But the unglamorous Preakness is the best betting race in the Triple Crown. Here's how a nit like me plans to make a killing.

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May 19, 2007

It's not quite true, as Damon Runyon once wrote, that all horseplayers die broke. We live that way, too.

Consider my friend the Plumber. The Plumber got his nickname because, like a lot of gamblers, he'll bet $200 on a horse, but he won't spend $20 on a pair of pants. He's a 50-ish suburban Jewish man, but his jeans sag like a gangbanger's, his kinky russet hair looks as though it was styled by Beethoven's barber, and he once spent an entire race meet wearing glasses with one stem. When he's low on betting money, the Plumber drives a cab. But he's a happy man, because he's spent his life at the racetrack. "Sure I don't have a lot of money," he says. "But compared to most people around the world, I live like a lord. I've got a roof over my head, I've got heat, I've got indoor plumbing. I always get enough to eat. What more do I need?"
Read the of the story at salon.com