[MaTH716]

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.................