The Clubhouse
- Bruno@Racingwithbruno
- May 30
- 11 min read
Updated: Jun 2
That bastion of beautiful derangement, the last refuge for the untamed and the unforgettable, its in the Clubhouse.
It’s less a section of a racetrack and more a courtroom of colorful delinquents, each awaiting judgment from the racing gods with a crumpled program in one hand and a beer and a hot pretzel in the other.
That glorious purgatory between the Turf Club’s crystal chandeliers and the general admission peanut gallery. A place where casual attire meets catastrophic self-expression, where logic is checked at the door with your half-eaten hot dog and the day’s losing tickets.
Yes, the Clubhouse, a swirling menagerie of personalities so odd, so magnificently dysfunctional, it feels as if someone opened the casting call for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and every single applicant was accepted—with bonuses for eccentricity.
Take Cinch, for instance. The diminutive Hungarian with the painted beard and a voice like gravel soaked in pálinka. No one really knows how he gets there. He simply appears, like a fog rolling in from a mysterious Eastern European noir film. Swears he once owned a Derby winner. Can’t recall the name, but insists the horse had "eyes like Stalin."
Then there's Jimmy the Mouth. A freshly paroled felon with a betting strategy that involves yelling at innocent bystanders until the odds shift out of sheer fear. His parole officer thinks he’s at a “job readiness seminar.” In a way, he is—his job is chaos and cashing a ticket, and business is booming.
The late Fat Eddie, may he RIP, a man of considerable volume and questionable hygiene, looms like a steamship in harbor. Had been “handicapping professionally” since Reagan administration, yet seems perpetually stunned that his $6,000 Pick 6 ticket missed because he left out the favorite. Again. He is still playing the P6 in the afterlife
Now, Magilla the Gorilla, the clocker with the hands of a grizzly and the subtlety of a chainsaw in a church. If he offers to “watch your bag,” don’t. Your credit cards will be in Tijuana by post time. He’s the reason some of us carry decoys—wallets with expired Blockbuster cards and coupons for shrimp cocktails in Laughlin.
And of course, Fast Eddie. Not to be confused with Fat Eddie—though both will sell you something out of their trunk. Fast Eddie’s speed isn’t just a nickname. He’s the backstretch’s answer to Walgreens after dark. Need “energy”? A chain with a crucifix and a horseshoe on it? A pair of fake Oakleys with a missing lens? Eddie’s your man. He's also been on more burner phones than a CIA asset in Karachi.
and,.....… Jimmy the Hat.
There he is!
Every racetrack has one, every clubhouse worships or fears him—usually both. He doesn’t need an introduction. He’s the type of man who walks in like he owns the joint, and to some degree, he does—not in deed, mind you, but in aura. The man has presence. Like Sinatra with a racing form.
The fedora? Perched just so. Worn not as a fashion statement, but a crown. It is the badge of honor in a war that spans daily doubles and pick sixes. That hat has seen things. It’s soaked in cigar smoke, bad beats, and the breath of a thousand muttered prayers. You know… real religious stuff.
The legend? It precedes him like an advance scout.“Jimmy hit a pick six at Santa Anita for 192K with a single in the third leg.”“Jimmy once told Baffert to scratch a horse.”“Jimmy doesn’t handicap—he foresees.”
He arrives at dawn, perched in the simulcast room like a general surveying battlefields across time zones. Gulfstream to Golden Gate. Delta Downs to Saratoga. If there’s a tote board, he’s watching it. If there’s an odds shift, he noticed it before you finished your coffee.
And when he talks—oh when he talks—It’s not small talk, no. Jimmy doesn’t have time for your pleasantries. He’s a symphony of four-lettered philosophy, a connoisseur of creative profanity. His voice cuts through clubhouse chatter like a buzzsaw through balsa wood.
“Why’d I box it?! What am I, Mother Teresa? I should’ve pressed the four! I told you the four!”
He doesn’t ask questions. He makes pronouncements. And when he walks down to the paddock—Ah… it’s a moment.The crowd parts. Conversations pause. Children avert his eyes. Because Jimmy isn’t just a man… he’s a mood.
His notes are scribbled in margins. His tickets folded like war maps. His heart is somewhere between his cigar and his pick six ticket. Jimmy doesn’t need luck. Luck needs Jimmy.
And the irony of it all?
He might lose more than he wins. He might be one bad beat away from turning the hat into a donation bucket. But none of that matters. Because Jimmy the Hat is the soul of the clubhouse. The living embodiment of what it means to believe. To bet. To bleed for this game.
No racetrack is complete without him. No day at the races is the same until Jimmy blows a gasket in the third.
He’s not just part of the game. He is the game.
… and how dare we forget. The Count.
Not a royal by blood, no official title etched into marble or stitched onto a family crest—but a Count nonetheless. Every racetrack has one. Not always by that name, of course, but the character is unmistakable. You’ll find him somewhere between the buffet line and the paddock rail, cloaked in mystery and courtesy, like a specter in a tailored blazer.
He is small, hunched, and eerily graceful, the kind of man who could disappear in a crowd—or stand out in a ballroom with a single spin. I once watched him swing-dance with a woman half his age and twice his height. It wasn’t a performance. It was a ritual, like an old cowboy taming a wild, bucking filly. There was a rhythm to him—fluid, practiced, almost romantic. The Count doesn't chase youth. He seduces time without ever uttering his name, just the Count.
No one quite knows what he does. And that’s precisely how he prefers it.
“Isn’t he a neurologist?”“No, no—he ran guns through Panama in the ‘80s.”“I heard he clears seven figures a month up north, something with sports betting and bonds.”“I thought he was a retired tango instructor.”
Truth? Lies? Whispers in a wind tunnel. You’ll never know. He speaks in tones so soft you lean in to hear him—only to realize you’ve just agreed to something, but you’re not sure what. Maybe dinner. Maybe a debt.
He never raises his voice. He doesn’t have to.He orders drinks with a nod, tips without flourish, and moves through the clubhouse like smoke through a keyhole.
But here’s the kicker, the part that makes him dangerous in the most intoxicating way—he’s always a gentleman.
Never a harsh word. Never a public outburst. No bravado, no boisterous declarations of glory or grief. And yet, everyone treats him with a curious deference, as though some unseen currency surrounds him.
And if you ask the valet, or Niko the bartender, or Jimmy the Hat, they’ll all say the same thing with a wink:
“That guy? Oh, he’s the Count. Big-time man outta up north. Quiet type. Real quiet. But if he writes your name in that little leather notebook of his… well, you’d best hope it’s next to a horse and not a number.”
He isn’t flashy.He isn’t loud. But in the theater of racetrack life—amid the princes, the playboys, the panhandlers, and the pretenders—the Count is a masterpiece of understatement. A gentleman ghost who always pays in cash, leaves before the chaos, and knows more about you than you’ll ever know about him.
So next time you’re at the clubhouse, watch for him—neatly pressed, calmly betting the fourth, disappearing into the fifth.
And whatever you do… never ask what is his real name.
These characters are Endless. And far too complex for caricature.
How about That bloodstock agent—not a man of silk ties, but worn-out soles, and stories as inflated as his expense reports. This is the underbidder of legend, the shadow prince of every historic auction. “I almost bought Northern Dancer,” he’ll whisper, eyes narrowing as if revealing classified intel or reading from cue cards, take your pick. Almost, always almost. A professional near-miss. If the Hall of Fame had a wing for those who finished second in the bidding war, he’d be its curator.
Then there's a ‘Flea’—a nickname so unfortunate it had to stick. He’s small in stature, volcanic in volume, and strategically parked next to anyone who looks even remotely gullible. Equal parts tout and town crier, Flea is the kind of guy who will give you five different horses in the same race, then shout “I told you!” when one of them finishes third. His greatest skill? Getting under your skin just enough to make you reconsider a lifetime of non-violence. He has been reportedly stuffed in garbage can, by a guy named Mugsy, in the past, no video was available at press time, our misfortune.
And of course, last but not least the mythical beast himself… Sluggo.
A walking monolith. A man whose handshake feels like a low-speed car crash. Sluggo is less a person and more a human security barricade, the kind of presence that makes even the drunkest railbird straighten their spine. He used to work the door at one of Manhattan’s finer gentlemen’s establishments, where he managed the velvet rope with an iron fist and a not-so-subtle snarl from a creature from the Grimm world.
At the track, Sluggo’s trademark is a celebratory slug to the shoulder—one that has sent more rotator cuffs into retirement than a pitching career. He doesn’t mean harm. It’s just joy, Sluggo-style. Primitive. Enthusiastic. Fracture-inducing.
"Who you like clocker, give me an winner?" preparing his fist like Thor and his hammer. Some of us, intellectuals, once in a while, and recently recovering black and blue shoulders would indulge The Sluggo,'the four, in the third. "I heard the 3" he would gutter out in an neanderthal tone. He needs a doctor, a shrink.
Somebody call him a Doctor. Is there a Doctor in the clubhouse?
Ah… yes, how could I forget The Doc.
Not just a psychiatrist, mind you—but an ER trauma psychiatrist. A man who spent his days navigating the wreckage of shattered lives and broken minds, stitching together psyches frayed by the worst humanity had to offer. In that sterile, humming world of antiseptic chaos, he was the calm—a lighthouse in the darkest fog.
And yet… to see him in the Clubhouse—oh, that was a different kind of theater altogether.
Here was a man who’d counseled soldiers, victims, addicts, and monsters alike—and yet he couldn’t hit a Pick 3 to save his life, despite saving mine, once. A walking contradiction. A savant of the subconscious, but a true catastrophe at the windows.
We loved him for it. He was our kind of disaster.
He was a fixture on what we called the "complimentary list"—an elite, exclusive little ledger of beautiful losers. Not because he won, but because he brought charm, humanity, and a bit of existential comedy to the track. Doc never needed a comped buffet ticket. What he needed—desperately—was a winner.
I remember that day. A carryover. A big one. The kind that makes even the jaded perk up and suddenly become deeply spiritual. Hopeful. Greedy.
Doc had just missed the Pick 6, the day before. Missed it by one. And not just any one—he missed it by our best play of the day. A Bobby Frankel turf horse, king of the green, practically screamed from the heavens. We sent it to him in our sheet on the comp list.
"Doc..." I told him, with the kind of disbelief usually reserved for crime scene photos, “That was the key! That was the whole ballgame!”
And without blinking, as calmly as if he were describing a traffic light, he waved it off:
"I just delete your stuff. I don’t read it."
Ah, classic Doc. That perfect mixture of brilliance and oblivion. But then—the kicker:
"There’s a carryover tomorrow. Send me your stuff."
Yes. That, right there, was sitcom gold. The man who ignored the gospel now needed a fresh sermon. And we? We obliged. Because the Doc, for all his betting blunders and comedic timing, was a genuinely wonderful human being.
He came to the track not to win, though he wouldn’t have minded. He came to exhale. To be among misfits and marvels, to be just a face in a crowd of degenerates where no one cried on his shoulder, no one asked him to heal the broken. Just to bet. To laugh. To miss the Pick 6 again.
Yes, The Doc was bad at gambling. But he was great at life. And in the Clubhouse, where flaws are flair and failure is a badge of honor, he was a star.
You see, this cast of characters… they are not found in the Turf Club. No, no. The Turf Club has its Saudi princes and Chardonnay whispers. The velvet asssasins that can murder you with words and dry wit. But the Clubhouse? The Clubhouse has conviction—and not just metaphorically. If not for the racetrack, half these men would be serving time, sentenced for crimes ranging from petty larceny to passionate idiocy.
Yet here they are. Redeemed, in a way, by racing. Held together not by decorum or decency, but by a common faith in chaos. Betting tickets instead of confessions, losing streaks instead of parole hearings.
There is a madness in them, yes—but also a purity. Because in the Clubhouse, nobody pretends. There are no filters, no façades. Just lifers. Committed to the game. And, in more than one case, candidates for actual commitment. Does Bellevue show TVG?
So raise your racing form in salute, my friend. For these are not just patrons of the sport. They are its poetry. Slightly off-key, mildly intoxicated, frequently concussed poetry—but poetry nonetheless.
These are your clubhouse dwellers. The middle-tier misfits. They’ve been banned from the Turf Club for crimes against fashion and human decency, but they’re too sharp, too plugged-in, too real for the general admission masses. This is their asylum, their arena, their kingdom of the almosts—almost had the Pick 5, almost called the longshot, almost made it out of jail before the seventh.
And yet… despite the madness, the mayhem, the questionable grooming standards… there's something beautiful here.
In the Clubhouse, no one pretends to be anything they’re not, they are just lifers. Degenerates with dreams as cracked as their bifocals and nightmares far worse the Jason: Friday the 13th saga.
They live for the game, bleed for it. And in a world of artifice and ego, that kind of authenticity—however bizarre—is rarer than a clean trip in a 14-horse field, then you can go to Mona and get a drink in a plastic cup.
Ah… plastics.
Such a trivial material at first glance, yet, as with most things in life, placement is everything. You see, at the racetrack—as in society—what you drink from often says more about your station than what you’re drinking.
Let’s take a stroll, shall we?
Begin in General Admission, the bustling, sticky-floored underbelly of the racing cathedral. There, plastic reigns supreme—plastic beer cups, plastic water bottles, even plastic forks stabbing at something loosely defined as chili cheese fries. The crowd is loud, opinionated, unfiltered. There’s a democracy to it all… until someone spills their third Coors Light down your back. This, my friend, is the steerage of the Titanic—cheap, durable, and entirely unsinkable.
Move up to the Clubhouse, and the tone changes. The cups are still plastic, of course—just thicker, more elegant in their attempt to be not quite as common. You’ll find a synthetic attempt at sophistication. But here, glass is still too risky. Why? Simple: passion. Passion breaks glass. And the Clubhouse is a place where a man can lose three exactas and still believe he has a future. Plastic prevents bloodshed.
And then—ah yes—The Turf Club.A different planet entirely.Here, the drinks arrive in gleaming glassware, because glass is the medium of memory, of prestige. You see, no one smashes a champagne flute after losing a photo finish—they simply raise an eyebrow and order another. In the Turf Club, they don’t wager to survive. They wager because they want to wager, for the sport of it. The glass here is symbolic. It’s trust. It’s class. It’s… illusion.
Makes me think out loud: The Titanic.
Of course, there was no glass in steerage. Just like there’s no linen in General Admission. No doubt they drank from tin cups and hoped the boat stayed afloat. The people in steerage didn’t need crystal—they needed a lifeboat.
And much like the Titanic, the racetrack has its decks:
Steerage: plastic in hand, hope in heart, ash on the ground.
Clubhouse: plastic with polish, caught in the middle, teetering between glory and disaster.
Turf Club: glass in hand, pearls around the neck, iceberg dead ahead.
So yes, the material of your drinkware might seem insignificant. But at the racetrack, it’s not just a cup—it’s a status report.
Because in this game, everyone’s chasing a different kind of ticket.
Some chase a superfecta.Others chase validation.But all of them, plastic or glass, will go down with the ship if they pick the wrong horse in the sixth.
Cheers. 🥃 Raise that plastic cup—the padded room of the racetrack, where the crazies don’t whisper… they handicap. Loudly, and frankly, the racetrack wouldn’t be the same without them.