The Unassembled

Batteries not included, and some assembly required.

The Assembled, the four stalwart members of a rag tag group that meets at the races several times a year, is in danger of not knowing what they each look like, especially, assuming without haircuts, due to the coronavirus pandemic and lockdown.

In Johnny D's case, he was able to cadge a haircut at his wife and daughter's hairdresser, a young woman working out of her finished basement in an undisclosed location.

Aside from not handicapping and betting the horses, Bobby G's lockdown has also deprived him of his weekly poker game, a continuously held event with a core and revolving roster of players that have been gathering at various locations for over 35 years. It might be the Oldest Established Permanent Floating Card Game in New York.

The median age of this group registers at 79, and is composed of those breathing who are well enough not to be placed in nursing homes by concerned family members. The game can't be held due to social distancing concerns. If that group ever sneezed on one another, the whole game might be wiped out and placed on ventilators.

Bobby G. is the major-domo there, and has now probably gone the longest period of his life without  a deck of cards in his hands since high school. And considering Bobby G. is the oldest of The Assembled, clocking in as an octogenarian, that's A LOT of years without a shuffle. Good to hear that the absence of the smooth, waxy surface of playing cards on his skin hasn't led to any skin conditions. And being a medical man, he's in the best position of anyone to self-diagnose.

Bobby G. being a retired surgeon who still reads medical journals, has predicted Dr. Bell at Oxford, England, will be the first to break through with a Covid-19 vaccine. As for myself, I'd be willing to take Bobby's prediction and place a wager at Vegas odds if they were taking action on this. Are they? Alert readers, please let me know. Because it seems that without a vaccine, The Assembled are going to remain Unassembled at a race track.

The other members, Johnny M. and Jose are doing fine. Johnny M. is taking daily walks around Bowne Park in Flushing, and Jose. the only member young enough to still be employed, is safe working from home.

Johnny D. is thinking of downloading some pps from Santa Anita or Gulfstream or Churchill just to keep his handicapping skills from turning to rust. Racing is still running and being televised from a select few venues, without attendance of course, but with everything else the same. An exacta pays the same with or without people in the stands.

Joe Drape, sports reporter for the NYT, has a story of how Fonner Park in Grand Island, Nebraska has become a bit of an epicenter for action.

It's a great story in today's NYT, with some nice color photos, that look really good online. It's a track my guess is that Mr. Drape has attended in his migratory phase of growing up, he being from Missouri.

The story tells us the second leading jockey is a 32-year-old Jake Olesiak whose full-time job is working at an ethanol processing plant, a two-hour drive east of Fronner. On a usual Saturday and Sunday the place boasts an on-track attendance of 6,500, which would be the envy of the New York Racing Association.

There is one great picture, not of the horses and the track, but of patrons who are gathered outside the chain-link fence, handicapping their picks on folding chairs unloaded from the back of their SUV. I think is was last year when I was cutting through the Belmont parking lot making my way in from Hempstead Turnpike, that I passed a similar cluster of guys who I imagined were trying to figure out their Pick-Six ticket. The Pick-Six that day. flush with carryover money.

There was no reason to be in the parking lot, since last year you could go into Belmont, but I imagined the parking lot, void of cars, was like being in the library—you could do your work without distractions. If J. Seward Johnson needed a model to sculpt horseplayers, this would be the perfect pose. Socially distant, but connected by handicapping.

Next week I'm going to treat myself to a downloaded set of pps from either Gulfstream, Santa Anita, or Churchill, and play the card. The races will be on TVG, so I'll get to watch my cross-country bets.

And who knows, my form might return and my exactas will run 1-3, with a 68-1 shot breaking up my ticket by gaining second.

I can't wait.

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