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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Robert O who wrote (41103)	12/26/2000 1:53:33 PM
From: mitch-c	Respond to of 70976

OT - horse races and stock trading It's like the guy at the track who does the $1 trifecta box with 4 horses. He always JUST missed. Well, shi* in say a field of 9 horses you are ALWAYS going to just miss it... or so it would appear. That's trading. My first (and only) time at a horse track, a funny thing happened. I was at Fort Knox as a brand new 2LT, attending a training course at the time of the Kentucky Derby. (Think of 2LT's as college kids flush with cash.) We planned an afternoon to go see this Great American Rite of Spring, and one of our classmates was from a family in the thoroughbred business! Naturally, we all bugged him for advice, since we knew just enough to recognize our own ignorance. After emphasizing that it was our money at risk (he really didn't want to be blamed for "bad advice") he made his predictions. He gave us all sorts of details that flew past (kind of like an FA summary), then said he'd just have to watch the warmups to make a final decision (sort of a TA thing). We basically winged it through the minor events with little bets; anything we won we rolled over into the big race. We were out for fun more than profit. I had bet on three horses - one to win, one to place, and one to show. I also threw two bucks at the "perfecta", where you pick the top two horses. I got teased for my stupidity - until every bet hit. I'd picked the top three horses, in order, in the Kentucky Derby through sheer ignorance. I covered the steak dinners that night. But, in an interesting study of human nature, do you know who was most upset? Yep - our "expert," who had not done as well. I had trusted his judgement more than he did himself, and that bugged him for some reason. <g> I've never made another horse bet - why spoil a story like that? - Mitch