On Kentucky Derby Day, Terry Bjork stood staring at a bank of television screens in a room at the back of the grandstand at Great Lakes Downs, a minor-league racetrack next to a freeway in Muskegon, Michigan. He held a program in one hand, a $2 cup of beer in the other. His faded jeans were covered with tiny holes, and his brushy gray hair swept out from under a Breeders’ Cup baseball cap.
Bjork lives in Evanston, so he could have watched the derby at Sportsman’s Park in Cicero, where the rheumy gamblers are sophisticated enough to swear at the horses and spit cigarette butts on the floor. But driving to racetracks is Bjork’s way of seeing America. In 1994 he got hooked on the races after he and a buddy picked a long-shot winner on a trip to Turf Paradise in Phoenix. He spent that summer losing money at Arlington International Racecourse, then started taking weekend trips to little “bullrings” around the midwest. He called his travels the McChump Racing Tour and wrote racetrack reviews that he posted on his Web site (mcchump.com).
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At Great Lakes the horses run in the evening, so the first race there started 20 minutes after the Derby, not enough time to handicap–look over the horses carefully and study the program. But before the second race Bjork ambled down to the paddock, a row of sheds behind a chain-link fence. There were only six horses, and they were an unkempt, underfed lot–their rib cages stuck out like barrel slats, and their shaggy winter coats made them look like mules. Muskegon is a blue-collar town, and these were blue-collar horses. They didn’t eat as well as the glossy thoroughbreds in Kentucky, but they had to run three times as often to win enough money to cover their feed bills.
In the third race Bjork won $9.50 on the exacta, which challenges bettors to pick the one-two finishers. He immediately took his money to the concession stand to buy a hot dog. That kept him away from the paddock, so he had to bet the fourth race just by looking at the horses’ records in the program. He couldn’t see that his choice, Starcheck Billy, looked like a starved rat. When Starcheck Billy finished sixth Bjork lost $2, but he didn’t care. He was going to bet on every race, and he knew no one could pick all winners.
