Horseracing.

I'm a nerd. Have we established this before? Sure, I have a long, as of yet unfinished opus to my love of games, and a page of reviews for every zombie movie I've ever seen, but that's nothing new in the world of nerds.

What proves the depth of my social disease is this new wrinkle in my nerdity, since it's the best evidence I've ever found that I must actively go out and seek dorky things, things no one else likes, things that put me on the fringe of polite society.

It's starts, appropriately enough, with a video game.

Clearing out the trade bin -- where we keep all the product that had been sold to us by customers -- I discovered an odd title. G1 Jockey 3. A horseracing game. One that boasts the ability to control "bit depth."

"Bit depth?"

I prep it, put it out on the shelf. My store is apparently at the crux of a big horse area -- lots of stables and ranches around here...for some reason. Someone will buy it soon enough.

No one does, and I find myself staring at it quite a bit. Picking up the box, looking at the screenshots. Eventually I take a look at the manual. Look at all the menus! This looks like Gran Turismo meets Final Fantasy Tactics!

I do a bad thing. I put the disc in a jewel case and bring it home with me to try it out. I closed that night, so I'd just bring it back when I opened in the morning.

The controls are unintuitive at first, but I quickly discover that this isn't like racing cars. If you try to take the lead all the time, you're going to get beaten as the horse tires out. OK, this is kinda fun. I bring it back. I take it home again.

I buy it.

I can't get the damn game out of my machine. I actually cancelled my World of Warcraft account because I was spending too much time with this game to play anything else. [Oh, I'll be back when the expansion comes out.] When I completed the Easy mode (I'm writing an FAQ for it, so I wanted to see the whole game from beginning to end), I had a winning percentage of 95%, whereas my nearest competitor had 32%.

I read reviews on the game, and discover there are other horseracing games, which I rent from Gamerang. For the record, the G1 Jockey series is a better simulation and is more realistic, while the Gallop Racer series offers more to do (breeding, betting, etc.), and is a little more arcadey, and thus a little more friendly (although in its latest iteration, Gallop Racer 2006, did away with tutorials, Season Mode, and just generally became more obtuse and hardcore. I know this is off-topic, but way to expand interest in the genre, guys).

Video game horseracing is fun, I thought. I wonder if real horseracing is this fun.

Enter NTRA.com.

There are free race replays, beginners notes, and the real killer: "Beat the Handicapper," a free online game. Every week you are given fifty (fake) bucks. You take that fifty and bet on the weekend's big race, and over the course of several weeks you try to beat each week's professional handicapper by making better predictions and better bets; if you beat the handicapper for the week you get an extra fifty bucks added to whatever other winnings you got. There was also a leaderboard, so you can see where you rank among the several hundred other players.

This is what really hooked me into real horseracing. I was pretty good; I came in a few weeks late but managed to climb into the mid-twenties on the leader board. I had to do this for real.

Strangely enough, Jamie was into the idea of going to the track. Maybe it was our mutual love for My Fair Lady and its memorable Ascot Race scene (this is not a joke. It's one of my favorite movies of all time), but she'd mentioned before that she had a knack for picking horses when her grandfather, a longtime horseplayer, took her to the track.

Funny story about her grandfather, before we continue. Her mother asked her mother if Ace -- that's the grandfather -- had a gambling problem. "Well, he would if he lost, but he doesn't ever really lose, so it's not much of a problem."

Back on track. (Pun!) We decided to go to Santa Anita, since it was a little closer than Hollywood Park. The day comes, and I'm nervous as hell. It'll be the first time I've ever gambled -- and then only the $50 I brought -- but more because I don't like being a newbie. I make sure to read and reread all the newbie information on NTRA.com about how to place a bet, what type of wagers to make, etc.

Our first lucky break comes in the parking lot. At the entrance the parking lot lady waves us in one direction, then in another. I pick one, and apparently it was the wrong one. I stop and Jamie asks where we should go, what should we do, this is our first time, all that jazz. The security guard who's there "likes her attitude" and pays for our parking, telling us to take that $4 and bet on some ponies for him.

Awesome.

Two funny things about the parking lot. 1. Lots of Mercedes, Cadillacs, Jaguars, etc. 2. Lots of handicap spaces, and all of 'em are filled. With Mercedes, Cadillacs, Jaguars, etc.

Approaching the building -- and it is huge -- we stick out like sore thumbs, in that we're young. Most everyone else is at least in their 30s. And male. And alone.

And staring at my fiancee.

Whatever. We're going to have a good time and snipe at the weird old gamblers. The lady at the ticket window seems shocked that not only am I paying for two people, but that one of them is a woman. And she seems surprised I asked for the clubhouse (the track is separated into two big sections, the grandstand, which is cheaper and the default, and the clubhouse which is $3 more and has slightly nicer amenities). I would come to learn that most people simply upgrade at the clubhouse entrance. Live and learn. That and I can't seem to figure out which is my left hand so she can stamp it with one of those UV stamps like at Disneyland.

I bought the tickets, so Jamie's going to buy the program and Daily Racing Form, but they don't take credit cards, and I want to take a look around before we commit to anything. We can find an ATM and see where we want to sit. Find the paddock, watch the horses getting ready, etc. We've missed the first few races, but that's okay, it's just nice to be there.

My god this place is deserted.

Santa Anita is huge. It could easily accomodate two to three times the number of people who were there that day. Is racing really in such a sorry state?

We wander into the main building, looking mainly for an ATM. Our hearts soar when we see a young woman about our age. No, wait. She's a waitress. Fuck.

Everyone there was old. Old and grumpy. Everyone's so serious. Isn't this supposed to be fun?

We're lost. Luckily, it happens to be right by an information desk, where a nice older lady gives us one in a series of "You don't belong here; you still have a soul" looks. She points us towards the clubhouse, tells us there's a restaurant where we can eat and watch the races, where there's an ATM, and is basically very helpful.

Basically, because there's one gigantic piece of information she left out.

We totter on over to the clubhouse. It's a little nicer, and a little quieter. We find an ATM with the single highest surcharge I've ever seen -- something like $3. Even when I was in England the charge wasn't that much. So we go to find some programs. I walk up to the guy I think is selling the DRF, but he's a cranky old codger who's selling newspapers and generally being a dick. Jamie, though, has found what she wanted, the program guy. ...who is also kind of a dick. He wants to sell us two programs, but Jamie turns to me and says, "We really only need one, right? Since we're going to share." I agree, and he seemed annoyed, but he asks the one quesiton you think we would have been asked at the entrance to the parking lot:

"You guys know there's no live racing here today, right?"

No. No we did not know that.

Imagine a ship. The wind has gone out of its sails, its rudder went and fell off, and the thing's about to keel over any second now. That's me. See, part of my plan had included the possibility that, if we each had lost our entire $50, we could just sit and watch the races and play "fantasy horseracing," picking winners but not betting any money, which is kinda what I did at home already.

Trying to salvage the day, we decide to bet on a few races anyway, since they are simulcast from other racetracks here for one's betting pleasure. The big races of the day are at Hollywood Park.

Wait. There's live racing at Hollywood Park? The one I wanted to go to? Balls!

We take a look at the next race and decide on a couple of horses we like. (I know, how can we handicap without the DRF? Well, you can't really, but that wasn't even the point of the day, so we'll overlook that glaring error in strategy.) We each put a $2 Show bet on a horse called "Proposed" because it's cute, since I'd proposed to Jamie not too long ago. We don't expect to win that one, but I think there is some law that we had to.

The automatic mutuel machine won't take Jamie's money. It took mine fine, but something happens when she tries to put her money in it spits it right back out like a particularly petulant child, so we go over to a betting window. I take her aside before we get there and go over how to bet. (I have this compulsion to want to do things the correct, "expert" way right off the bat. None of this "learning curve" bullshit.) "Name of the track, number of the race, amount of the bet, type of bet, number of the horse." The nice clerk gives us the now-familiar "Aw, newbies" look.

We head back to a little table to watch the race. I'm really trying to drum up enthusiasm, but it's hard with my internal monologue going, "Be careful what you wish for." Plus...gamblers are a lot creepier than I thought. All right, a pretty girl is in the room. I'd look too, but this is getting ridiculous. I have to stare down a few guys -- guys who could be her grandfather! -- to let them know their attention is not welcome.

We both also have this fear that someone's going to steal her purse. The few people who come over to talk to us ("Do you know who won the last race?" "What race is next?"), lead us to circle our metaphorical wagons around the bag, which is weird because the place is crawling with security and anyone who tried anything would have been tackled before they could even make it out the door.

We watch a few races on the simulcast, and they're a lot of fun. What's really fun, though, is watching the old gamblers yell at the TV, like your uncle watching football on Thanksgiving. People are really getting into it, and Jamie and I have fun trying to guess how much each person bet on the race based on how animated they get.

Our race starts. Actually, it doesn't. Post time was 12:20 PM, but a horse acted up and they had to empty the gates and try to calm everyone down. Angsty horse is scratched, and the rest are loaded in again.

Horse races are much more interesting when you have money riding on it. I hope I'm echoing Jamie's feelings, but we got caught up in the spirit of the race, and it seemed like we picked a good one since a lot of people were flocking around our TV. We got out of our chairs and urged on the horses, yelling at the TV with the skeevy gamblers.

We lost. The horse I liked to show finished just outside the money, Jamie's fifth, and Proposed seventh in a ten horse field.

"You want to bet on another race?"

Yes. But. "No, I'm kinda done." We head to the car, and as soon as we close the doors: "Good god but gamblers are weird!"

"I know, and the one guy with his nine year-old kid?"

"What was that about?"

I propose, to salvage the day, to head to the Huntington Library and Gardens, where we have a membership. Hey, it's on the way home, and I know what to do with art and among people who listen to NPR.

As we pull into the Huntington's parking lot, I turn to Jamie and say, "You know, this never would have happened at Hollywood Park."

G1 Jockey 3 and Gallop Racer 2006 are the two games I play the most at the moment, the latter more so since I'm just renting it and want to suck out the marrow before I return it. I'm most excited about Final Furlong for the Wii. I'm thinking about importing a copy of Winning Post for the PSP, so I can keep up with my horseracing video games when we're on vacation in Connecticut in a little bit. I think I've downloaded every horseracing ROM for NES, SNES, etc. (Casino Debry for the Famicom is an awesome game, for those interested.) Betting on Horseracing for Dummies is on my nightstand, and required reading before I go to bed every night.

When we hit Hollywood Park this fall, we're going to be prepared.

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