Note: I usually post on movies on Tuesdays, but this week I’m waiting until after I see “The Dark Knight” to write anything film-related

There’s some chortling going on in the comments section at dailygazette.com in response to the poll question: “Do you bet when you go to Saratoga Race Course?” chortles Superdave1919, “Who comes up with these questions? Maybe next you can ask ... ‘Do you eat when you go to a buffet?’” “Or do you drink when you go out with Jimmy Buffet?” chortles Adirondackal.

I have to admit I had a similar reaction when I read the question, because I can’t imagine going to the track and not placing a bet. (These aren’t scientific polls, but so far 54 percent of respondents say they place bets, 38 percent say they do not go to the track and 6 percent say they do not place bets - why these people go to the track and what they do there is a mystery to me.) Granted, most of the bets I place at the track are $2, but if I’m feeling really lucky and adventurous, I might plunk down $5.
Saratoga Race Course opens for the season on Wednesday; today the Gazette printed the final article in a three-part series by sports reporter Mike MacAdam looking at how racing analysts pick the winners. (You can find the series here). I don’t go to the track very often, but it’s always a good time, and there are at least three reasons why it’s a good time: There are horses, you can drink beer, and you can place bets on the horses.

The first time I went to the track was in 1999. My friend Geoff was living in Lexington, Ky., and invited a group of friends to go to Keeneland Race Course. A native of Iowa, Geoff had never been to the track until he moved to Lexington to work at the paper there, but he’d enjoyed his trips to Keeneland, and his enthusiasm was infectious: We were all looking forward to a day at the races, even though we had no idea what it entailed or what we were doing. It was a nice spring day. We arrived early and watched the horses pacing in the paddock. We picked up racing guides and studied them. We discussed strategy; I decided to bet on horses with cool names. Then the races began, and we started throwing away our money. Or should I say that everyone else started throwing away their money. Because I placed a $2 bet on a horse named Burrito, and won $80. At the time, it seemed like a pretty sound investment.

“I’m rich!” I exclaimed, before running off to collect my winnings. And it didn’t stop there. I ended up with $160, mostly from bets ranging from $2 to $5. (I thew caution to the wind at one point and placed a $10 bet.) It was a successful day, and I had a ton of fun, but I’d also gotten my first glimpse of how easy it might be for someone to develop a gambling problem. Almost every time I placed a bet I made a little bit of money, which made me feel like placing more bets and making more money, and if I lost money, well, I imagined that I could just place another bet and recoup my losses. Because I wasn’t losing money. I was on a nice little streak, and although I understood that streaks end, it was impossible to imagine that anything like that would happen, not with my friends coming to me for racing advice and acting like I’d been blessed with some sort of luckiness gene.

Whenever I go to the track, I remember the horse named Burrito, and I place $2 bets on horses with cool names and really long odds. I’ve never been able to recapture the magic I had at Keeneland, but I’ve experienced winning and I know that it’s possible, and so I’m always optimistic and hopeful when paging through the racing guide. “Here’s a horse with a cool name,” I’ll think. “Maybe I’ll do well, like at Keeneland.” But I never do. Perhaps Burrito was one of a kind.