|
< Day One
Day 3 >
TOUR Day Two
Daily Double: trying to beat the races at Compiègne and beat
the clock on the road to Senlis
Our last
race of the day would be the featured Grand Prix de
Compiègne, where I had great hopes for the Royer Dupré
trained For Joy.
Both For
Joy and Daly Daly were the horses for course, but the first
one had much higher odds (better potential return) in the
preliminary evaluation by the public handicapper. My old
partner, the late Dick Mitchell, used to say, “When you have
two horses qualifying by the same factor, all mathematical
simulations have shown that you are better off in the long
run playing the one with higher odds.”
It was a
half hour walk to the track walking at Garance’s pace
through boulevards that mimicked Gothic naves, vaulted by El
Greco-elongated trees. It was easy to duck the jabs of the
hot sun. The openings between the trees played like stained
glassed windows, depicting stately mansions that represented
various styles in France’s architectural spectrum. Each
house contained a story, and Garance, who had hobnobbed with
the region’s bourgeoisie, chronicled her spicy oral history.
Our first
view of the track was from behind the petit
grandstand, with colombage structures looking more like
museum pieces than jockeys’ or stewards’ quarters. From the
rail you could see the forest behind the backstretch
invading the grounds, leaving majestic, broad-trunked trees
scattered strategically throughout the grassy infield.
The
grandstand leaned right over the track, as if we were seated
on the apron by the rail. Compiègne is a huge oval with two
chutes, but with an entirely intimate feel, like attending a
Frederick Keys (Maryland) baseball game compared to seeing
the Baltimore Orioles. But many of the heavy hitting major
league trainers, including Freddy Head, whose filly
Goldlikova won the 2008 Breeders’ Cup Mile, had horses lined
up for the feature, a listed race.
The Grand
Prix de Compiègne was the local race of the year, so female
spectators were dressed in refined grace, topped off by art
nouveau hats. If she forgot her hat, a woman could rent one
from a booth at the entrance. My old client Carson, who goes
to
Del Mar to watch the women, might have been disappointed here:
less flesh but more elegance.
With the
track implanted in the forest, the heat was not nearly as
oppressive as it would be for us on the road later that
afternoon.
The first
race was a five horse field with the heavy favorite figuring
to win. He won. We watched with impotence. The second event
was the Quinté race where off-track lottery players take a
wild stab at picking the first five finishers in order. With
18 riders you could see an entire silk rainbow punctuating
the rich green background.
Alan
played the highweight Dance Dance, who was 10-1 even though
he had defeated many of the horses in this field at one time
or another. I have often seen Alan collect by betting the
best horse in the field in this type of handicap race
because the public shies away from the high-weight factor.
Alan’s
only important bet of the day was Dance Dance for placé
(our equivalent of show since they do not have place betting
in France: horse must finish first, second or third). In
America,
“show” is a bet for wimps, but not here, with an 18 horse
field, where finishing fourth or fifth is considered a
success story.
His
investment rationale was pristine. The favorites looked
vulnerable and with 18 potential in-the-money finishes, the
payoffs would be generous. Dance Dance was hindered by a 14
post position in a mile-and-a-quarter race, coming out of a
chute to the right of the grandstand which cuts the first of
two turns in half. He also bought a ticket for Garance (Stymied
by the race, I played a “Hail Mary” MULTI, combining various
longshot angles, which eventually lost.)
Dance
Dance raced competitively near the lead, gliding smoothly on
the backstretch. Deep in the stretch, guided by Olivier
Peslier, Dance Dance fought courageously in an attempt to
hold on to the second slot. He was passed just before the
wire by two other horses, finishing fourth only three necks
from a victory. It was a smart bet for Alan, but for
Garance, it was a losing bet. No way to explain to a novice
the exquisite and fundamentally sound reasoning of Alan’s
investment, nor how close he, and she, had come to
collecting a generous payoff. (Validating Alan’s logic,
Dance Dance would go on to finish second in his next two
starts, against similar fields.)
In the
meantime, I had come up with a horse for course in the third
race. Cottingly Fairy had just won an E race against
fillies, right here at Compiègne, wire to wire. She was
moving up a level to a D race and now facing the boys, but
based on earnings per race, she was as good as the rest. She
was 17-1. (Note: from best to worst, races are categorized
from Groups I, II and III, down to Listed, then A, B (first
division handicaps) followed by second division handicaps,
down the letter ladder to the lowly level of G. We would be
seeing many E, F and G races during our odyssey.
I was not
concerned about the gender factor of Cottingly Fairy but I
did have my doubts about the “shape” of the race. My front
runner would be squaring off against several other
front-running types and thus be subjected to the type of
early pace stress that she had eluded in her previous
Compiègne win. Because of today’s more difficult pace
configuration, I played her placé in a field of
twelve going a mile and a quarter.
The bell
sounded, the gate opened, and Cottingly Fairy burst out to
an early lead and extended the margin on the backstretch.
On the
final turn for home, it looked as if she would take them all
the way. Into the long stretch, she was challenged by
another horse and courageously put him away. Tough young
lady. But with only 50 yards to the wire, she was caught and
passed by another challenger.
She held
on for second place by a nose.
With the
2-1 favorite off the board, the placé payoff came
back generous. I had won enough so that if For Joy were to
lose the feature race, I would still be even for the day.
It was a
lazy afternoon, and I was relaxed. Too relaxed! Decision
making at the track involves on-your-feet intensity. I
skipped the fourth race and bet For Joy to win in the fifth,
buying a ticket for Garance as well. I felt confident enough
to not bother checking the odds monitors behind the
grandstand. (There is no infield toteboard.)
Instead,
from my comfortable seat, I watched a lavish folk dancing
performance by a dance troupe from
Mauritius.
What I
had not noticed was that the other horse for course, Daly
Daly, was 7-1 compared to the 5-1 on For Joy. Way back at
the cemetery in Levignen, I had chosen For Joy over Daly
Daly because of the expected odds differential which would
give For Joy a better potential return. The differential had
been reversed and I was oblivious to it.
The
truth, embarrassing as it may be, is essential here. My
story is all about what happens in the mind of an old fart
who stubbornly insists on a young person’s bicycle challenge
and a normally “stable” horse bettor who is venturing into
what horseplayers consider “the unknown”: two very uncertain
voyages in dynamic convergence.
For Joy
broke smoothly enough; but for the rest of the mile and a
quarter he backpedaled, as if he were fatigued or just plain
bored, struggling home ninth and last.
Just as I
predicted, the favorite was out of the money, finishing
eighth.
And the
winner? The other horse for course, Daly Daly, paying off at
7-1! I can hear the words of Dick Mitchell, a man whose
voice continues to reverberate long after his death:
“Cramer, you putz! You should always play the contender with
the higher odds. They have something called an odds monitor.
You should have used it.”
I had
broken even for the day, emerging unscathed, and Alan had an
error-free day, making one intelligent bet that happened to
miss by a neck. But to Garance, we were two broken-down
horseplayers.
I hoped
that my upcoming choice of roads would better than my choice
of horses. We had to beat the clock in order to avoid being
stuck in total darkness in the immense Senlis forest. For
the first time ever, leaving a French race track, the next
day’s Paris Turf was not available, and we would lose
precious time searching for it around town before our
departure.
We showed
Garance a map of our route. In the midst of her cheery
good-bye, there was a sudden look of fright. Eyes bulging,
she was like Edvard Munch’s silent scream on the
expressionist bridge. She cringed about a long and steep
climb going from Port-Sainte-Maxence into the Senlis forest.
We might wilt away in the heat before we got to the top. We
should phone her to let her know that we had survived.
By the
time we hit the
Oise riverside bicycle path out of Compiègne, it was past
5:30 pm.
It would be dark in the thick forest by 9 even though the
sun lingered until 10 in open spaces.
It was
steamiest part of the afternoon. The asphalt path would
eventually morph into a rutty packed dirt trail that would
slow us down by its precarious surface and its lazy-loop
path along the contour of the river. With the burnout of
calories, we would be obligated to stop for dinner somewhere
along the way. Both the bicycle path on the first segment of
this trip and the forest in the last part were unclear on
our maps, so we would also be faced with time-consuming
intersection decision making.
Normally,
going southwest, we should have had the afternoon sun in our
eyes. But the regional planners had done us right, plotting
the bicycle path through an abundance of shade trees. We
rolled along the sun-striped path, enjoying the river to our
right, occasionally hopping over an exposed tree root or
swerving to avoid a stray child.
After the
asphalt ended, we reached a fork, having to choose between
the wider path that veered away from the river or the
narrower one that kept the river in sight. I let Alan make
the choice. Precictably, his knee-jerk option was for the
aesthetic route along the river. If you gave Alan a choice
of a strip-mall route to heaven or an alley to hell lined
with Monet and Matisse, he would choose the latter.
We
navigated over the increasingly narrowing path, scraping by
annoying but hopefully unpoisonous growth at each side. In
the Tour de France the pampered bicyclers follow a car and
never miss a turn. We followed the oral testimony of array
of local residents we bumped into along the way and tried to
triangulate their conflicting opinions into the most likely
winner. The path clamped up around us, and only a sharp
machete could have gotten us through.
Rather
than turn back, we walked our bikes along a cornfield,
tracing a third side of a triangle, eventually joining up
with the right path.
By the
time we would reach the riverfront town of
Pont-Sainte-Maxence, the gateway to the Senlis forest, we
would have gone off route two more times: once to find a
sandwich place in the hilly town of Verberie, and then in a
wild goose chase in search of the vanished path, only to
realize that we had to get on D123 road.
The
detour at Verberie (population about 3,500) allowed us a
glimpse at the raging local controversy. Verberie dates back
to Charlemagne. In the year 711, it was a shepherd’s town
called Verimbrea. As a result of pillage by invaders, most
ancient architecture is gone, with only a few 16th and 17th
century homes surviving among the weatherworn shutter-lined
19th century row houses.
We saw
signs hanging from grainy wood-dormered windows with a big
“NON” against a planned gas-fueled electric power plant. I
also saw one “OUI” sign, but according to Le Parisien
newspaper, 98 percent of the region’s inhabitants oppose the
power plant for ecological reasons. I would have liked to
stop and find out more, but I remembered what Robert Frost
had written about having promises to keep and miles to go
before we’d sleep. My fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Jane, who
would have been 120 years old today, had shaken me by the
collar for not having understood the poem. Well, Mrs. Jane,
today I finally figured it out!
A
straight road from Compiègne to Pont-Sainte-Maxence was 24
kilometers, which we artfully turned into at least 30.
We turned
left (south) at the Pont-Sainte-Maxence bridge and enjoyed
the subdued evening shades on pastel wood shuttered stone
façades along the road.
The climb
that Garance had winced about was every bit as formidable as
she had described. The image of the steep incline was larger
at this moment than anything else in my life. War in
Afghanistan,
an illness of my son, corruption in high banking circles, my
daughter’s job search, even my own chronic health problems:
none of these things mattered. Only one thing was of any
importance: getting up that hill.
This is
what happens when you are on the road. What is immediate
replaces all long-term tribulations. The top of the hill was
beyond our view but in trying to visualize it, all other
concerns were expunged from the mind.
Next came
the compensation for that sunstroke alley on our first day.
If we had been given a menu for the climb, we would have
ordered two things: abundant shade and a narrow bicycle
path. We got both.
As was
our custom, Alan was the front runner and I was either the
presser or the closer. The fresh air of the woods made up
for my low red blood cell count, and with the help of first
gear, I thrived on the challenge.
Alan
still beat me to the top, where the road flattened out at an
intersection. We got off our bikes, profiting from the
sylvan silence to think clearly about the best way through
the forest. We decided that the side roads would keep is in
better communion with nature.
We still
faced a mild climb before the glorious descent into Senlis.
The forest darkened, with the 9pm sun filtering in here and
there, in evolving patterns. We were now coasting downhill,
our sweat fanning dry, and I shouted, to no one in
particular, “stop the clock”. It was a Basho moment, calling
for several three liners:
Darkening forest
A few rays of sun
Filter through
The forest is still
No need to pedal downhill
My own wind drying my sweat
We
arrived at a crossroad and were obligated to stop. I said,
“go right”, Alan said “go straight” and in fact, we should
have gone left. My map was perfectly detailed for
departmental roads but made no sense when it depicted a
forest, as if the mapmaker had asked his 3-year old kid to
“draw lines through the green parts”.
We went
ahead until the road ended and Alan searched in vain for any
path that would continue straight on. He’s a difficult man
to stop. As Sancho Panza must have said to Don Quixote many
a time, I told Alan was wasting his time conjuring up a
path. Tall and thin on his bicycle saddle, Alan even looks
like Don Quixote, but his City-of-Paris bicycle gets him
around better than Rocinante.
We found
ourselves in front of the wrought iron gate of a magnificent
estate, a rustic version of
Versailles,
impeccably restored. A man and woman, in their thirties,
approached us from behind the gate. Living at a dead end
like this, they probably appreciated an occasional stray
cycler.
As it
turned out, their property was a haras, a breeding
stable for race horses, in this case trotters. They pointed
the way. “Go back up the hill, make a right, and then make
your next right out of the forest and then one more right.
That’s all you need to know.”
We stayed
in a chain motel and now I knew the reason for the adjective
“chain”. It had all the traits of a prison, including a
space-saving bunk bed, perfectly set up for toe stubbling
and head bumping. The air was hot and stale inside so we had
to keep the window open, which meant waves of noise from a
nearby freeway, which I tried to imagine as waves on the
seacoast of Normandy.
Alan left
his insured rental bike locked to the iron rail outside the
chain motel. In my case, having had two cheap bikes stolen
before, and now having gotten myself a bicycle really worth
stealing, I decided to hoist mine into the second floor
room, leaving us no space to maneuver.
We
resolved, for the rest of the trip, to accept only
aesthetically pleasing places to stay, that is, if we had
the choice. Not knowing how many kilometers we would advance
each day, we were obligated to refrain from “choosing” our
lodging until 10pm sundown, which significantly narrowed our
selection, especially for the following night, when we
projected to be in the middle of nowhere at sundown.
Alan,
still with reserve energy, went to visit a friend in Senlis.
I studied the next day’s Chantilly past performances, ate a
piece of fruit, and was about to turn out the light when I
discovered a horse.
Race 3,
Chantilly, level D: “for 3-year-olds that had not won a race
at B level or better in the last year, nor won an E race for
the past three months”. “E” was one level below today’s
race. This “condition”, which is like a legal contract, told
me that any horses in this field that had been racing for
the past three months were proven losers.
Such
conditions told me I should look for a horse that had not
raced for the past three months, meaning he would not be
a proven failure. Only one horse was not a proven loser.
It was
the 8, Sweet Hearth, who had not raced since September. He
was coming back after nine months off. But he showed a win,
in Italy at the “listed” level, a year and 22 days ago.
“Listed” is even higher than B. Had he won his listed race
22 days later, he would not have qualified within these race
conditions.
When a
horse comes back after a long vacation, you need a good
trainer. Sweet Hearth had the best: Royer Dupré, the same
trainer of that dud, For Joy, who had caused me such grief
at Compiègne. Mossé, the grief maker aboard For Joy, would
be back in the saddle.
Either
Sweet Hearth would win, bringing me poetic justice for the
loss of For Joy, or Royer Dupré would earn the designation
of cold trainer. Sweet Hearth was the third choice of the
public consensus.
Thinking
about Sweet Hearth would provide me with more than enough
energy for the 12 kilometer bicycle ride from Senlis to
Chantilly
the next morning.
Senlis is
not the type of place you can zip past with a clear
conscience. So even if you have a good bet awaiting you at
Chantilly, you need to spend a reasonable part of the morning
gawking at the Middle Age wonders of Senlis.
France
doesn’t need theme parks to recreate the past. The past is
never more than a few kilometers away.
In the
case of Royer Dupré, I hoped the very recent past at
Compiègne would not repeat itself the next day at
Chantilly. Day
3 >
Top Of Page
|
