Federocko Boys Win Big!

Kirby and Daddy show off their winning tickets...
$16.60 and $1700 respectively

The first Saturday in May is always a big one for the Federockos. It's Derby day. It's a big day for Husband. Every year he drives to one of the off-track betting locations and places his bet. Every year, he lets the boys pick a horse too. In 2004 when Kirby was just 15 months old, he picked the winner, Smarty Jones, by touching his name on a betting sheet. This year Kirby picked another winner...Big Brown.

This year, Husband won the trifecta. For those unfamiliar with horse racing, that means that he correctly picked the top three winners, and in the right order. For those who could care less, but want to know how that translates, it means $1700. I couldn't believe it. Yes, there was a lot of woo-hoo-ing and jumping up and down on my part. Husband was ecstatic, though much more contained than I was. This is an amazing streak of luck he's been on lately, and as he likes to point out, I'm quick to get on board with gambling when he wins.

Poor Connor, he spent the whole 2 minutes of the race repeating (over and over) "C'mon Z Fortune, go Z Fortune!" That's the horse he randomly picked. When we all got so excited over Big Brown's win (and the boys' winnings), Connor assumed he won. He finally asked me "Mommy, did I win? Did Z Fortune win?". "No baby, your horse didn't win", I said. No Joke, here is a photo of Connor after I told him...
"How come my horse didn't win?"

He got over it pretty quickly and said, "Next time, I am going to pick Big Brown." I assured him that he could pick Big Brown for the Preakness in a few weeks.

It's not that Husband is a big gambler, but he does enjoy his weekly lottery tickets, the occasional poker game, his annual trip to Vegas, and betting on the Triple Crown events. Having grown up close enough to a horse track to hear the races in the summer, horse racing is something he cares about.

Big Brown, in His Moment of Glory

So...thank you Big Brown, Denis of Cork, and Eight Belles. You certainly made our summer landscaping projects financially possible. And to Eight Belles, who ran her heart out, crossed the finish line with a solid 2nd place lead, and shattered both of her shins, I have to say I wish I could put that amount of heart into everything I do. In a sad twist of fate, she ended up being euthanized within a couple minutes of winning the 2nd place purse.

Oh and incidentally, Kirby wants to take us all out to Chuck E. Cheese with his winnings.