What was your first exposure to horse racing.

[afleetphil]

I remember a horse that won the Derby , but was disqualified. Dancer's Image in 1968. Today what ever was in his system would be legal. I really got into racing in 1971 with Canenerro II, the horse from Argentina that won both the Kentucky Derby and Preakness. Little did I know in 1971 what was to come next. Riva Ridge, Secretariat, Seattle Slew and Affirmed.

[Catalina]

When I was... 13 years old, I spent a few weeks in a summer camp near a harness track, and since the father of one of the older girls had horses running there, we did a group visit to the track a couple of times.  Obviously just to watch for a bit, then we tromped back to camp. 

[CA_Chrome]

I seem to have been born loving horses, was an early reader, and throughout my childhood read every book about horses my dad would buy for me. One was a book about Man o' War. I'm not sure if that was my first exposure to horse racing, but it was certainly one of the first. My first distinct memory was the 1960 racing season when I fell in love with a horse named Bally Ache who won the Preakness that year. He died of a twisted intestine that fall. In the meantime, Kelso, who had not raced in the Triple Crown series, began the first of his Horse of the Year seasons.

[Raven]

Great topic Phil.

It was Spring of 1974, was going to a movies on 42nd street and a friend came by and asked me what i was doing, i told him that i wasn't working that day and he asked me if i wanted to go to the track with him.  I had no idea what horse racing was!
So i went with him to Aqueduct.  And 44 yrs latter, I'm still betting Aqueduct today!!

[stark]

Early 60's @ Hollywood Park
There with my Uncle and like all the other kids we became stoopers between races!
My lucky day, found a ticket worth $10 and I was hooked.
Immediately went to the new Big5 sporting goods store and purchased my very own glove for little league.
I was a star, as those were the days where lots of sharing was still popular, not everybody had a glove but I did.
Wish I would've bought a cup too, sharing the catcher duties was pretty nasty as I look back on it.

A couple of years later and I joined a junior bowling league and we were all fans of horse racing and named our teams accordingly, mine was Mr. Consistency.

[Senator L]

I use to watch it on Wide World of Sports.
First time I went to the races was 1976 Queen's Plate @ Woodbine
Got $5 for the day and put it all on the winner Norcliffe
Started going regularly in 1990 when I worked across the track  :chickendance:

[Dusty]

Grew up in the farm country of Pennsylvania - many horses - not many thoroughbreds - so my Dad watched racing on TV and I with him he got so excited watching - and of course I was hooked - Moved to Virginia in the 70's - so I go to tracks in MD - then moved to Ca in the 90's and WOW 3 tracks within an hour of me = I was in heaven

[peeptoad]

Mine is probably typical for a female : started riding horses at 9 years old in the early 80s and quickly became exposed to racing. Watched my first live Derby the year Gato del Sol won and was hooked.

Dusty, I hear you about living in SoCal. Lived there almost 15 years though I am from NE. Hollywood Park is / was my absolute favorite track! The Spa is right up there as well since it was the first track I went to starting in the mid 80s.

[curtis]

My grandmother kept a bookie afloat when I was growing up.  She babysat my younger sister and I during the day when we weren't in school.  She would call in her bets in the morning and then listen to KNX 1070, a news radio station in the Los Angeles area, as they would broadcast the stretch calls of every race approximately 15 minutes after it ran.  I still vividly remember hearing Joe Hernandez call races from Santa Anita and Harry Henson from Hollywood Park and Del Mar.  The first horse I remember seeing, and being quite in awe, was Majestic Prince.  As I mentioned last week, Ack Ack and Quack were two favorites of mine.  I'll never forget the 1973 Hollywood Gold Cup as Mary Bradley removed Bill Shoemaker from Cougar leading up to the race.  Whittingham, Cougar's trainer, put Shoe on the Canadian champion, Kennedy Road.  Kennedy Road was a man's man if you can describe a horse that way, as they used to douse him with buckets of ice water in the receiving barn because he would drop down and refuse any other method to get him to draw up--that would work for me!   Kennedy Road and Shoe ended up beating defending champ Quack and Don Pierce--who Whittingham also trained--a dirty nose with Cougar and a very frustrated Laffit Pincay Jr. five lengths back in third.  As I said earlier, Cougar was as quirky as they came and while I'm sure Laffit learned everything he knew about The Big Cat from Shoemaker, Shoe didn't teach him everything he knew about him.  If anyone wants to send me a PM I can send you a short story I wrote about a day at the track with my grandparents.  It's too big to post here. 

[stark]

My grandmother kept a bookie afloat when I was growing up.  She babysat my younger sister and I during the day when we weren't in school.  She would call in her bets in the morning and then listen to KNX 1070, a news radio station in the Los Angeles area, as they would broadcast the stretch calls of every race approximately 15 minutes after it ran. 

Good stuff Curtis, ahhh memories in SoCal,

Our bookie in the MarinaDelRey/Venice area doubled as an informal church setting with a giant JESUS SAVES sign in the front yard of a residential area.

And if you missed the call on 1070 you were pretty much out of options until 6pm when you'd flip the radio dial over to Bill Garr's 15 minute restaurant show where he did the race recalls.  And if that was your option, it was always a good idea to check the next morning's paper cuz Bill sometimes had a different way of seeing things . 

By comparison, today's customer gets upset with TVG if they show a  race with a 10 second delay and claim it's LIVE.  Progress?

[stark]

Everbody's favorite game in Vegas, my first exacta!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPAp4mQVC48

[OaklawnCapper]

My grandparents have a vacation home on Lake Hamilton in Hot Springs that is decorated in horse racing stuff.  They have been going to the races since the late 1960s.  When I was little we would go to downtown Hot Springs and always pass by the track.  I was always fascinated by this huge building.  When I was 7 years old they took my younger brother and I to Arkansas Derby day.  Ever since that April day in 1997 I have been hooked.