Dog day

As you may recall, I scratched my eyeglass lenses when I was trying to change my tire. They do not like being ground into the pavement. That’s why I was in Los Algodones, Baja California today. Again. It takes two hours—not two weeks—for them to make the lenses, which gave me some time to kill. 

It was lunchtime. I went to a restaurant around the corner. All the outside tables were taken (it’s al fresco dining weather here), so I went inside. The layout was odd. There was a hallway just inside the door that led to the restrooms, a turn down another hall past the bar, to some tables that turned out to be a sports book. But they served food, so why not.

A bank of monitors showed fútbol (of course), horse racing, harness racing and greyhounds. I had never watched greyhounds race before. Wow! I think it’s the origin of “greased lightning.” I know abuse is a problem in animal racing, but it’s amazing to watch. At least while enjoying sopes and tacos. 

I knew nothing about any of the dogs, but, to make watching even more fun, I would randomly pick a dog to cheer for. “C’mon number four!” I never picked a winner. Good thing I wasn’t betting. It made me wonder, though, how much knowing a lot about the dogs, trainers and breeders increases one's odds. Some, but how much? I thought back to the football pool at one of my jobs. One season, the eleven-year-old son of a coworker won four weeks in a row, before they banned him. His method? Whose uniforms did he like the best? So I picked dogs by their markings. It didn’t help.