[MaTH716]

Ok, back from the emergency room where they think I have Salmonella poisoning. A couple of bags of IV and I'm almost as good as new. I should have seen if they could have replaced my a.sshole, this one I have must be burnt out by now.

After the races on Thursday the crew (Myself, Bigs, GPK, Heels, BT, Rude and I want to say Herk) return to the Grunder bar at beautiful Tampa Bay Downs. I failed to mention that one day earlier while we were there, we were entertained by quite a show with the star being BT. He was betting the lovely Dover Downs and the Meadows (I think there might have even been a dog race or two involved) on the absolute blind while babbling like a complete maniac. You would ask him "Bri, what do you have here" and his response would be something like "2,6,with 1,2,3,4,7,9,11,12" and we would be like "what?" and he would just look at you like you were the crazy one. And of course there was the yelling at tv's. It all came together very nicely. I have to admit that I have never been so entertained at a racetrack without ever having a dollars worth of action.

So we were back on Thursday with real tracks running and a bigger crew. Grunder himself is in the house and Bigs works on him to do a number on the Ed O'Bey race the following day. Bigs said it was in the bag, especially since Bigs bought Grunder a beer. I get the feeling if Bigs bought him two, GPK probably could have called the race. We start one of many show parlays during this wonderful trip. We have a wide selection of tracks and basically just trying to find a decent chalk to hit the board. Did I mention that we were doing this totally on the blind? Basically we would come up with a horse (usually odds on) and then yell like comple f'n mental patients at the TV as the race was going on. You know those guys we all hate at the track? That was us on this occasion every 4 minutes. We would be screaming at the tv trying to get 3/5 shots to hit the board. It really was quite a scene. In one particular race from Penn National our horse looked dead on the backstretch, the jock was already pumping his mount and was wide to boot. When out of nowhere BT (whom with his hair, beard and gigantic sunglasses looked like Alan from the hangover, hence all those references you have heard in the past few days) said "no reason to worry, that's how winners are ridden at Penn National". An absolute roar went up from the group and sure enough the horse won going away. That would become our rallying cry whenever one of our horses were in trouble. I also saw him lose a sandal making believe to kick out the plugs on a harness nag he had bet. The kid put on an absolute show, he's a star in my eyes. But if I didn't know him I would call the mental institution and try to commit him. We started with $60 bucks and we had it up to about $240, when we selected a race that we all actually handicapped. I think it was the 7th or 8th at Santa Anita with Nakatani up for Assmussen at 3/5. It really was a very weak endorsment from the group, some guys actually wanted to stop and use the winning to pay for dinner at the Wicked Kilt. We never looked like a winner the entire race and when it was over you would think we lost about 10 grand, there was silence. Not only that, a whole bunch of us got knocked out of the pick 4 in that race too. Next thing we know we see GPK shoulder cappin the Meadowlands over some old guys shouder that he's chattin up, so we shower him with some abuse for a while. I actually couldn't believe that he was tall enough to see. But we gave it to him good and it perked everyone right up again. It really was non stop hilarity and I had tears from my eyes many times. Finally it was time to leave and more comedy ensued. It took us 10 minutes to get out of the track as every door was locked as we tried to vacate the premises. Finally we got out and it was Tilted Kilt time.

We all get out of the cars at the TK and BT is hit up by this woman with a young girl and a baby for money saying they were homeless. BT kicks a few bucks to the woman, but the WTF look and his face said it all. It actually was a very sad situation, if indeed they were telling the truth. We walk in and there was some real talent working there. The place was fairly crowded. I thought our waitress was OK, but she seemed like a real bitch. Maybe that's cause we asked for sperate checks (by the way who did that?). I'm happy to report that this would be the second establishment on the trip where I didn't piss out of my ass. Also this is where we would meet up with Lori (Antitrust). I think Lori enjoyed the TK more than everyone else combined. Her head was on a freakin swivel. She was having a grand ole time and I thought we were going to have trouble getting her out of there. It really was a pretty uneventful dinner. Most of us were shot from the day and knew that we had a really big one on tap for Friday. It would be Triple day...............

To be continued..............................