Feb 7th, 6:45 AM

  This morning I looked at my "gallop records": a notebook in which I keep count of how many horses I exercise every morning and who I exercize them for. I failed to enter my count since Friday and it's Monday now. Sunday is easy to remember, but the day before has been obliterated by those same recollections, so the job is to piece together what happened Saturday.

It didn't use to be that way. When I first began doing it the job was a miracle of accomplishment for me, and my head was filled with every moment of every day with every detail intact. After nearly tewnty years it doesn't have the same fascination. I get to work at the last minute, whip through the day and beg off my last horse at the 'Rec. Hall' exit so I'm only a few steps from my car and moments closer to home. While I can't think of anything to do for money that could more fully engage me  I can't help being in a hurry to dis- engage when I'm done. When does play become work?

I love the job less and the horses more

What makes my work seem interesting is now the sharing of it. I was drawn to this business and, actually , to the lower profile people and places in this business by a romantic attraction to its mysterious 'underside'. I really wanted to know what the truth was about all those 'crooks' and old degenerate gamblers and 'guys and dolls' types of characters. Now I know, and even though the only great realization I could get out of it is that a lot of people waste twice their  honest dollars trying to make half as many crooked ones, the story is really entertaining. I'm glad I have been there and seen that kind of thing first hand. 

SO

Now that I am retired I have  a chance to keep it all alive by sharing it here in this BLOG and by allowing an open discussion about the life of the "horse racing class" and the realities of horse racing.

This is my way of bringing to others the same thing that so interested me as I was growing up.  Although, as of this moment I really don't even know if this is going to make it all the way to the internet, because this is all new to me and  I'm having an awful tough time with it. If I don't post regularly at first it's on account of something else badly needing work that there's only one of me to do, but please check in regularly:  The purpose of my writing is to cause people to have questions and post in my forum, and get answers and basically have a dynamite time- without even having to travel the same road (not for everybody, I can tell ya that) for twenty years....

Best Wishes, and God Bless,

Liz Lundberg