Several ex-wives, dozens of friends, and some passersby in my life have asked me how I got this way. What makes a man get all wrapped up in horse racing and spend his days poring over racing forms, the internet, and watching race replays? What makes a man lay awake at night trying to decide if one horse will have more early speed with blinkers and if the Cornell collar is really all its cracked up to be?

In my particular case, I have to admit I got started on this path of picking winners and living, breathing, and loving horseracing very early in life. It all started when I was a little kid. My grandfather worked the local tracks helping trainers and exercising horses in the mornings. In the afternoon I accompanied him to the races.

Nowadays, kids have their parents come into school and explain what they do for a living. On other days parents take their kids to work with them so their progeny will know what the heck pops or mom does for a living to pay the bills. My parents never took me to work with them (except for the summer that Mom picked peas and beans for a living) but they were very happy to get me out from under feet.

I guess my parents didn't know what to do with me and it seemed like a good idea at the time. Gramps didn't mind taking me along and one of my earliest memories is standing at the fence at the old Lincoln Downs in Rhode Island and watching the horses legs go flashing by while the ground shook from the pounding of their hooves. The adults were shouting and carrying on something awful and I knew then that whatever it was that had just happened must be wonderful and as soon as I was old enough, I was going to get involved in it.

If I could have just stayed little everything would have been all right, but I grew and grew and it soon became apparent that I wouldn't be a jockey unless they started racing elephants. Years later I groomed horses and owned a few race horses, but handicapping and betting horses has become my passion. There are many ups and downs, but it's worth it.

So if you happen to be at the track on any old day and see an old curmudgeon with a stale cigar clamped in his teeth, squinting at a program and mumbling about track variants and tongue ties, it may just be this old horseplayer. Gramps long ago went to that winner's circle in the sky, but the tradition lives on.