You can’t live on the Ohio River between Kentucky and Indiana, having been born in Kentucky, and not know about horse racing.  The genes for loving horses, the racetrack and the two dollar bill were in our genetic makeup and deeply entrenched in our blood. Evansville, Indiana was only about twenty minutes from Henderson, Kentucky where Ellis Park, built in 1922, was located.

The thoroughbred-racing season began in July and ran through Labor Day during the hottest part of the year. Steam rose off the cornfields as we drove the back roads to Ellis, which were normally nothing more than dirt tracks.  At any other time of the year, the farmer, sitting atop his tractor, was the only traveler on those dirt roads. Lined on each side by flooded or dry riverbanks, this route was quicker than the traffic laden Hwy 41, which was the main route to the track.  From the back roads, we pulled onto the temporary parking lot of green, grassy areas, and Daddy squeezed our car into any conceivable space available. We walked the long way to the track, through dried, river bottom sand. The wind picked up the dust mingled with sand and circled us as we stopped along the way to watch the horses coming out of the stables. The horses were beautiful and the brightly colored attire of the jockeys was stunning even in this smaller racetrack venue.

As children, we didn’t know that the horses weren’t necessarily Derby bound; we just knew that other kids our age didn’t get to go to the racetrack except for our cousins who lived on the Kentucky side of the Ohio River.

At the track, our job was to pick a horse for each race. We made our selections, not by the talent of the horse or the skill of the jockey, but usually by the name of the horse-the name that just might bring us luck. With our two dollar bills tucked away in small pockets or hands, we happily followed our parents toward the grandstand where we leaned on the rails and watched our pick on its way to a hopeful victory.  While some people may have thought taking two young children to the racetrack was inappropriate, I prefer to think of it as another form of education. The experience introduced us to ratios, returns and chance. If you bet two dollars and your horse won, and it paid 2:1, you knew you were going to win four dollars. And if your horse, didn’t win, then you had two less dollars to spend. What a better way to practice basic math!

There was also the mystery of it all. How did you really know which horse was going to win? Mother certainly didn’t, but somehow, she usually came home with at least one winning ticket. She would bet on a horse if it had one of our names, or if she liked the jockey, or if she liked the color of the horse. If the horse was gray, she would always bet on that horse. Even if it had the worst odds of winning. She would bet on that horse.

As an adult, trips to the track continued with my own children in tow, and Mother was still betting on that gray horse. We cheered for her off-the-wall choice, and then stunned, watched her collect her winnings. We tore up our losing ticket stubs and silently kicked ourselves for not betting on that gray horse.

Still today, so many years later, on that first Saturday in May for the Running of the Roses, my sisters and I text and call and discuss our proposed bets for the Derby. We call our brother in Indiana and ask if he’s going over to the track. For four Strange kids on that day, we always place our bets. Sometimes we win and sometimes we lose, but we always place our bets. And sometimes we have a mint julep, or two, just because we can!