First time was 1980 @ Saratoga (I was 16), I really wasn't into the horses then.
When I got my first (real) job in '86, met a guy who played everyday...the rest is history!
Took my step kids in 1991, they were little then and three year's ago my step daughter
worked over there in the summer when she was out of college.

Went when I was 7 to Randal Park and later moved on to the Big T (Thisteldowns) where I spent mos of my youth from 14 -18. Had my high scholl schedule arranged to make the first post.

Spyder

I think Spyder and I have been down this road before.

My first track visits were to Ascot Park. The Akron-Cleveland Ascot Park.

Eddie DeBartolo bought it and melted it into Thistledown around 1966.

I started attending during the Eisenhower administration, and was definitely having my mom and dad place bets for me by the Bay of Pigs during the Kennedy administration. Maybe earlier.

Honest to goodness, I was reading by the age of 4, and my reading of choice was the sports section, and the Daily Racing Form.

Fractions and percentages were a piece of cake by the time they were introduced in school.

I was following the entries, and results, daily. My Dad came by the track on the way home from work and was always there by the 8th race....and sometimes the 7th. I placed my bets with him in the morning.

I didn't see a Kentucky Derby on television until 1967, because we were always in attendance at Ascot Park on the 1st Saturday in May. I remember the stir in the crowd when word spread by those with transistor radios that Northern Dancer had won the 1964 Kentucky Derby.

I turned 50 last summer.

This Saturday, I'll likely be at Golden Gate Fields for the $300,000 San Francisco Mile.