By  Rheanna O’Neil Bellomo

Photo by Kelly MacDonald

Robert Publicover nestles into a chair by the door at Three Little Figs (278  Highland Ave.) with a small coffee and the New York Times. The 62-year-old, born in Somerville and raised in Davis Square, perches reading glasses on the end of his nose and studies the paper. His daily ritual has begun.

Publicover has dedicated much of his life to pouring energy into serving others while pushing through his own setbacks. While battling HIV/AIDS for three and a half decades, he has become one of the most notable and recognizable figures in the Somerville community. He founded the Somerville News in 1980 and ran it for 22 years. He founded the Committee for a Response to AIDS in 1985 just before his own diagnosis, and the Somerville high School Scholarship Fund in 1990. He’s authored two books about the virus, and began a state senate campaign in 2005. You can call him a newsman or an activist or an entrepreneur. First and foremost, though, Publicover has always been a fighter.

In 1986, when first diagnosed with HIV, Publicover’s doctor warned that he only had 18 months to live. “I didn’t believe him,” Publicover said. “I just knew better.” Testing on a previous blood sample following the diagnosis would later show that he had contracted the virus as early as 1976.

In the 1990s, Publicover became the go-to guy for  HIV-positive young men looking for advice or consoling at his old hangout, the former Bar 119 on Merrimack Street in Boston. His guidance earned him a nickname. “They called me The Godfather,” he said. “And they used to joke that long after everyone else was dead, I would still be around.

“Well, they were right.”

Today, Publicover is believed to be the nation’s longest living survivor of AIDS.

A Love Lost

He has questioned why, of all his friends and family, he has survived both HIV/AIDS and cancer. “I used to get asked all the time why me, and i used to have great answers,” he said. “Now I’m not sure. Some things just don’t have answers. All I know is I must have done something right – or God is getting even.”

Though he is grateful for the time he has been able to keep, losing so many friends and family over the course of a few years has left a scar. “There really is no way to deal with it. It was like a war,” he said. “I’ve lost so many, I’ve lost count and i don’t want to know.”

The most difficult of his losses was John, his partner of 11 years.

“We did everything together, non-stop,” he said. “We took for granted that I was older, we thought I would die before him.”

In 1981, Publicover had recently founded the News in the ashes of the defunct Somerville Times when he met John at Bar 119. Publicover was 32, John 21.

Together, the two established the fundraising non-profit Committee for a Response to AIDS in 1985. John had already been diagnosed. Publicover’s diagnosis would follow shortly after.

In 1992, John was in and out of Somerville Hospital numerous times with an HIV-related illness. After his third visit, there was little doctors could do. For three months, Publicover visited three times a day.

“He was very dedicated to John, taking care of him day and night,” said Mary Hart, a nurse in the clinic at Somerville Hospital at the time. “When John wanted to go home at the end, Bob was determined to get him there.”

Hart volunteered to assist John at home. Two or three days later, he died.

“There were no solutions,” Publicover said. “It was the hardest thing. A grief you think you’ll never get over.”

For about a year after losing John, Publicover fell into depression but was the first to recognize it and get help, according to Hart. “He has never felt sorry for himself and is always determined to hang in there and be a survivor,” she said. “That’s who he is, a survivor.”

A Love Found

In the years following, Publicover wrote two books about the power and effect AIDS has on those diagnosed and their friends and families: My Unicorn Has Gone Away and What’s Wrong with Uncle Johnny? The books were born from both his and John’s experiences with HIV/AIDS.

These testaments invoking his lost love would help lead him to his next.

In 2005, a nursing student contacted Publicover about his writing. David Lebahan, 38, was working on an HIV education piece in his hometown, Scranton, Penn. The two formed a mentor-mentee relationship – first over email, later in person. Eventually, they started dating.

On their first date at The Franklin Café in Boston’s South End, Lebahan had to step outside to catch his breath. “I am so pathetically romantic. I thought to myself, ‘Wow, this guy is something else. He’s pretty incredible, how did I end up on a date with him?’” he said. “That was my ‘aha’ moment, and it only blossomed more and more.”

Six months later, shortly after Publicover ended a state senate campaign because of his health, Lebahan moved in with him.

During their first weekend together, Publicover became extremely ill at a rapid pace. He was bed-ridden for six months with an AIDS-related illness. He couldn’t eat, receiving nutrition through an intravenous drip. His weight dropped to 82 pounds, from 124. “It was absolutely terrifying,” Lebahan said. “Every time he goes in it’s still terrifying – not because you’re afraid he won’t come home but because you don’t know what the next step is. And there will be a next time.”

“His T [cell] count has been so low that anyone else would have been dead,” added Hart. “With Bob, it’s, ‘Oh well, I’m going to get my shots and get some sunshine and keep going.’”

After working through illness, death, loss, and survival, Publicover considers HIV his best friend and his worst enemy. “It’s the one constant that’s been in his life for the past 35 years…I call him my cockroach. The man will live through nuclear war,” said Lebahan.

New Directions

Publicover sold the News in 2002, between publishing his second book and meeting David. By the time he sold, the paper had become a Somerville centerpiece known for its long features focusing on notable community members.

“He featured all kinds of city contributors,” recalled John Sappochetti, who covered sports under Publicover as a 16-year-old and has remained a close friend since. “Teachers, politicians, business owners, families who had lived here a long time.”

Of late, his working time has been equally split between his two lasting projects: the Committee for a Response to AIDS; and the Somerville High School Scholarship Foundation, which he established in 1990 to help send students from his alma mater to college. Publicover and Lebahan have kept travel a constant in their life, staying in New York City for a Broadway show and occasionally flying to San Francisco for the warm weather.

This morning, in the café, Publicover pulls a suit jacket over the light blue fleece zipped to his chest, his plaid tie barely visible. His salt and pepper hair is cut short. His face wrinkles with laughter when he smiles. He has his sights on his next great adventure. His goal is to establish a new small business, but for the first time in a long time he’s unsure which direction to take.

The first step for Publicover is to end his battle with perianal cancer. After three years and four surgeries, he is scheduled for another biopsy, which he hopes is his last. He also has a lot of planning to do: his wedding with Lebahan is scheduled for June 17 at the Arlington Street Church. When the idea comes, though, he’ll be ready. “One day I’ll walk into something or it will hit me in the side of the head, and I’ll know it’s the right thing.”

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Article source: http://www.somervillescout.com/2012/05/the-survivor/

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This story is from the August 16th, 1973 issue of Rolling Stone.

Los Angeles – Dick Clark has few frustrations. But the man who’s had things go his way for 20 years – who fell into the Bandstand job through other people’s mistakes; who emerged from the central depths of the Fifties payola scandal as the Clearasil-clean millionaire Prince of Rock and Roll (while the King, Alan Freed, died penniless); who considers himself “just a bystander” in today’s drugola mess; who’s built an entertainment empire covering TV, radio, films, concert promotions and, of course, corporate consultant work in the field of youth – is upset. Standing behind the bar in his Malibu beach house after barbecuing and eating an overdone steak dinner, he gets mixed up with his Japanese dessert, and he dips his strawberry into the brown sugar instead of the sour cream first, and he makes a face, wrinkles show around the eyes, and the 43-year-old who looks thirtyish suddenly looks fortyish.

The subject is a movie he badly wants to do, has spent four years trying to put together, has gone from studio to studio trying to pitch. Called The Years of Rock, it would be “the definitive study of what happened in 20 years of rock and roll.” But most important, it would relieve Dick Clark of one of his other frustrations.

“I got to do this film,” he said, “because I don’t want to be remembered for doing a medley of my Clearasil commercials. My youngest kids say to me, ‘What the hell was going on?’… They don’t say ‘hell,’ they say, ‘Tell me about the olden days.’ And I want to pull out a piece of film and say, ‘That was what it was all about. That’s why you are like you are today.’ ” And right now, that film is nowhere, except for a 13-minute sampler financed by Warner Brothers, who has since dropped out of the project. “They got discouraged with the failure of all the other music films.”

Dick Clark is not given to muttering; he never speaks in any way except distinctly. He is a man with no, you know, verbal tics, and he allows nothing – a leading question or an inner anger – to affect his pitchman-perfect, best-selling salesman smoothness. But if he ever allowed himself to mutter, he’d be mumbling-stumbling right now:

“If you want to know why you are like you are today, all you have to do is examine the music. I’m running into the same goddamned prejudice I ran into in the Fifties, the Sixties and the Seventies. They don’t know what the hell I’m talking about and they got the bread.”

Another problem is getting 20 years of stars to agree to participate. “There are 1200 clearances involved in that film, if we ever get it made. The damn thing’s got to be a labor of love because it’s such a drainer. I mean, you sit for hours and hours and caress people’s egos. You’ll beg them to please let you have a little piece so you can represent them. It’s really strange; you run into all sorts of reactions. Some people say, ‘How much time can I get?’ Others say, ‘How little can I give you?’ I had four meetings with Mick Jagger about the footage that he wanted to see. Bob Dylan says, ‘Fine, just let me see the pieces and whatnot.’ Prior to this year it was very difficult to get Allen Klein, who could gather three of the four Beatles. Those are the problems you run into. But I can’t even worry about it now, because I don’t have a deal. When I do, I’ll figure out a way to get the releases.”

But of course, this episode in Dick Clark’s career has an upbeat little twist. Even if the movie is in limbo, even if he may have to pluck out one of his own millions of dollars to make the film, he’s got this album out, timed with all the recent promotion of his televised celebration of American Bandstand’s 20th anniversary, an oldies package on Buddah Records called Dick Clark: 20 Years of Rock and Roll. It has just been certified gold – “a legitimate half-million-seller,” he said proudly.

It is not Clark’s first big record, and, as for the word “legitimate” – well, he brought it up.

As the man running the most influential record show in America in the late Fifties, young Dick Clark, as one disk jockey working in Philadelphia at that time put it, “had a piece of everything.” In the Fifties, payola was not illegal; you broke the law only if you failed to pay taxes on such income. Clark, the Philly DJ was saying, had a price. “He really put them up against the wall, and he was never reasonable about how much… he always wanted half the publishing and three cents a record and…”

And so, it is said, in the transcripts of the House Legislative Oversight Subcommittee hearings on payola in 1960, Dick Clark had some hits. He owned or part-owned 33 corporations in the music business – record companies, publishing firms and record pressing plants. He got the copyright on the Crests’ “Sixteen Candles” and played it heavily on Bandstand and earned $12,000 in royalties. All together, he got the copyrights to 160 songs, 143 of them as “gifts.” Clark explained: “If you were a song-writer then and you had a song, you’d want me to own it because I could do the best by it. That’s just good business.”

Philadelphia, home of Bandstand, dictator of the dances, the fashions, the record-buying habits of teenagers all over America, was riddled with payola. Dick Clark, professing his innocence from the beginning, weathered a seven-month investigation and then sailed through the hearings as calmly as if they were just… TV shows. At the end of the sessions, the chairman of the committee called him “a fine young man.” How did he do it? Said Clark: “I had done nothing illegal or immoral. I had made a great deal of money and I was proud of it. I was a capitalist.” No more, no less. Said the Philadelphia radio veteran: “Clark was no cleaner than anybody else. They never even got into half the shit that Clark did, because he was sitting before a Congressional investigating committee that when the cameras were shut off, all the Congressmen would rush up to ask for his autograph for their daughters. It was a total fucking joke.” So how did he do it? “The same way that all the bastards that are testifying in the Watergate thing will all end up running large corporations, they look so good.”

Just the way Dick Clark spotted me glancing at his record shelf and let sail a disclaimer – “Oh, those are just there to fill the space; my actual collection is in a warehouse with all my stuff” – because he didn’t want his story pockmarked by a list of crappy records he happened to have laying around, Dick Clark hoped that the payola issue wouldn’t dominate a piece on his 20 years in the business. He could even see the headline: Old Payola King Talks About New Payola. And he didn’t want that; didn’t want to add to the gas.

“We’re far removed from that mainstream of music commerce today,” was about all he would say. The payola hearings of 13 years ago followed government investigations of Jimmy Hoffa and TV quiz shows, and Clark has been quoted as calling the payola hearings “just politics. An election year and all; they were just looking for headlines.” Did he feel the same about the “drugola” talk now getting senatorial attention? “I don’t know if it was politically timed,” he said, “But I know when it’ll explode. When Watergate is over.”

The story of how Dick Clark emerged out of those 1960 hearings looking so ific – as his finger-snapping, Beechnut-cracking, side-swaying teen galleries would have put it – is a large part of the story of Dick Clark.

Dick was the third man to stand behind the podium of what was then the Philadelphia Bandstand. But it was he who became “The Kingpin of the Teenage Mafia,” or “The Czar of the Switchblade Set,” in those publications that heard rock roll, accurately enough, as no more than tribal jungle noise.

Clark himself liked jazz, listened to DJs like Freddie Robbins and Symphony Sid on WOV in New York. Dick had wanted to be a disk jockey since age 13 after he saw Garry Moore and Jimmy Durante doing a radio program; he went to Syracuse University, and in his first year got a spot on the campus station. For his audition, he did an imitation of a radio announcer. He did impersonations in high school, he said, “to get over a terrible inferiority complex… I was not physically terribly attractive. I was skinny and I had a lot of pimples like everybody else did, and I was going through that teenage thing of ‘I don’t want to get involved with too many people.’ ” His mimickry was apparently enough to cover up some of the blemishes, and Clark got elected class president in his senior year.

He moved on to Syracuse, where he studied business administration, majoring in advertising and minoring in radio. After college, he bounced around in DJ and newscaster jobs at radio and TV stations in Syracuse and Utica, New York. “I was the Walter Cronkite of Utica,” he said – at $52.50 a week.

In late 1951 he moved to Philadelphia. Clark is happy to skip right into the story of the two original Bandstand hosts and how they started the show in 1952, and how he got tapped as the solo host in August, 1957, exactly 16 years ago. But first things first:

Another radio announcer, who was there, recalled – without skipping – Clark’s beginnings. “He was hired onto WFIL radio as a summer replacement. I think the manager and Dick Clark’s father co-owned a TV station – in Utica or Syracuse. Anyway, he was the second of two guys hired, and after the summer, they had to drop one of them. Normally, the first one would have stayed, but he used to do a network feed from the Epiphany Church, and every time he did it, he’d mispronounce it as the Epi-fanny Church. So they fired him for that, and Dick got to stay.”

Article source: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/dick-clark-20-years-of-clearasil-rock-20120418

Article source: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/03/22/3507708/thomas-robinson-talent-chiseled.html

One’s age can now be detected through scanning a photo, thanks to Face.com’s new API (application programming interface).

The API considers factors like the shape of one’s face, wrinkles, and smoothness of skin, among others, in checking for one’s age. The age detector might not be always correct, but after it studies your photo, it also gives an age range which might be more accurate. The API’s accuracy is dependent on the image quality of the photo and one’s pose in the snapshot.

“Instead of trying to define what makes a person young or old, we provide our algorithms with a ton of data and the system can reverse engineer what makes someone young or old,” said Face.com chief executive Gil Hirsch.

The age detector is being seen to be useful in censoring and tailoring content to specific ages. For example, a young-looking user will be blocked from watching an R movie, or ads would be tailor-fitted to people for better targeting.

via SlashGear

Article source: http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/face-com-api-reveals-approximate-age-through-photos-31-03-2012/

Cate Blanchett is an actual, real human woman. She has lines on her face; wrinkles!

She’s also beautiful.

The 42-year-old Australian thesp’s naked face appears on the cover of the Economist’s feature mag, Intelligent Life, without makeup or digital alterations.

It makes us wonder whether we’ve ever seen the actual face of any of the countless women deemed beautiful by the media. “When other magazines photograph actresses, they routinely end up running heavily Photoshopped images, with every last wrinkle expunged,” writes editor Tim de Lisle.

More Houston rumors

She can’t get away from drug chatter even in death. First the Los Angeles County coroner cited long-term cocaine use as a factor in Whitney Houston’s drowning death. Now police are investigating whether someone removed drugs from her Beverly Hilton Hotel suite afterward.

Spelling pregnant. Again!

Tori Spelling, who gave birth to her third child, Hattie, five months ago, says she’s expecting again. Tori, 38, and hub Dean McDermott, who wed in May 2006, also have son Liam, 5, and daughter Stella, 3.

Hilary Duff is a mother

“Wow, I can’t believe I have a baby!” So perennial teenager Hilary Duff, 24, tweeted Friday, three days after delivering her first child, Luca Cruz Comrie, with hub Mike Comrie. “Thank you for all the messages and well wishes. I love you all so much.” What’s her son like? “The most wonderful, sweet, adorable baby.” Aww.

Tidbits ‘n’ pieces

No more sledgehammered watermelons for you: A week after suffering a heart attack, comic Gallagher told radio station WDCM (97.5 FM) in Marion, Ohio, that he is retiring after 32 years.

Article source: http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/20120324_Sideshow__Unretouched_Cate_Blanchett_on_a_magazine_cover.html?cmpid=138887484

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Article source: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/03/22/3507708/thams-robinson-talent-chiseled.html

Article source: http://www.oyetimes.com/lifestyle/36-fashion/19702-choosing-the-right-foundation

The FDA approved the use of plasma as an injectable into the face in March 2010 and already it has taken off like vampires in the night.

Offices in Beverly Hills, Newport Beach, Miami, Manhattan and now La Jolla are offering this hematologic procedure. The Spa of La Jolla will start offering this non-invasive lift this weekend. Beauty and youth-seekers are paying anywhere from $1,500 to $3,800 for this procedure across the U.S.

On Saturday and Sunday, Dr. Jon M. Grazer will perform the “lift” at The Spa of La Jolla for a killer deal starting at $1,800.

“I had mine done a few weeks ago and I had absolutely no downtime and no bruising,” said Dianne York, president and CEO of The Spa of La Jolla. “This is very, very exciting.”

The procedure is four simple steps. First a practitioner draws blood from the patient’s arm, not their neck. That blood is placed into a centrifuge that spins the blood very rapidly to separate out the platelets. While the blood spins, the practitioner fills face wrinkles and lines with a filler such as Juvederm. Once the blood is separated and the filler has been injected, the platelet rich plasma (about 50 percent of the blood drawn) is injected into the patient’s face.

“This is really exciting because you are using you to look younger,” said Kathleen Duggan-O’Brien, licensee of the trademarked procedure and former La Jolla resident. “We are not cutting, we are volumizing you.”

This procedure was featured on Doctors and has rare reviews by many, but no studies have been conducted based on results. Many claim that platelet-rich plasma injections can improve skin color, lift the face with collagen and make skin appear smoother.

Duggan-O’Brien explained that there is no risk for an allergic reaction because the blood is your own.

In addition, Duggan-O’Brien, an owner of Dallas-based Eclipse Aesthetics, a manufacturer and supplier of aesthetic medical products, said Eclipse will be opening its Southern California base from The Spa of La Jolla. Duggan-O’Brien and Eclipse Aesthetics will conduct physician-based “vampire” training workshops and courses, as well as holding “vampire” events for future patients and neighbors throughout the year.

For more information about the vampire facelift email kduggan@eclipsemed.com or call 972-814-5521. To make an appointment at The Spa of La Jolla call 858-459-6868.

Find La Jolla Patch on Facebook and Twitter @LaJollaPatch.

Article source: http://lajolla.patch.com/articles/look-younger-with-new-vampire-facelift-procedure-offered-in-la-jolla-c192a7c1

Now that I’m over 50, I look back at my younger self and wish that someone had pulled me aside, sat me down, looked me straight in the eye and told me what I’m about to tell you. For sure, many — if not all — of these “commandments” you intellectually already know to be true. However, your current younger you may not be emotionally ready to accept them. You might still be in that glorious, relatively carefree stage of life where you think, “Oh I don’t need to think about these things now. I’ve got plenty of time to think about them later,” which is a variation of The Ant and the Grasshopper fable from Aesop. Or, perhaps you’re simply too engaged with the business of life to bother. Or, you are caught up in the very youthful idea that you are invincible.

• Don’t Stop Networking: Whether you choose to stay home to raise children some day or work straight through, you should never stop networking, and building on that network. If you do choose to be a SAHM (stay-at-home mom) try to stay connected to your career by moving from full-time to part-time work, which will make it easier for you to move back into full-time work when you’re ready.

• Do Create a Personal “Board of Directors”: Whether you’re looking to change jobs or careers, pursue a relationship, or end one, having a trusted group with whom you can review life’s challenges, is essential. Invite several friends (or even just one) who will encourage, inspire and guide you. Having a regular group you can depend on for unbiased and objective views and advice is critical, especially as you are facing major life decisions.

• Don’t Smoke: Lung cancer is the #1 leading cause of cancer death for women, but it is avoidable. The #1 cause? Smoking, which is also associated with many other illnesses. We are considered the smarter sex, and yet women are picking up the habit more than ever before.

• Do Wear Sunscreen: I spent my teenage summers basking in the sun at Coney Island, with baby oil mixed with iodine slathered on my body, a reflector aimed at my face. I threw away the reflector and tried to remember to put on sunscreen, but it wasn’t until my mid-40s — when I saw sun damage on my face (wrinkles, brown spots) — and I developed skin cancer on my chest, that I got serious. Soaking up the sun feels great and who doesn’t look fabulous with a little peachy-bronzy glow. But, if you don’t apply sunscreen every single day of the year, including on your neck, chest and hands, you will put yourself at high risk for skin cancer (highly avoidable) and skin that looks much older than its years (wrinkles, brown spots, sagging, leathery skin). Steer clear of tanning booths, too.

• Don’t Have Risky Sex: Unsafe sex = higher risk for pregnancies and STDs, some of which are life long. Don’t think because you are young, you are immune and invincible. You are not. And don’t put pleasure before common sense. Make sure you know the scoop on your partner before you proceed, including your boyfriend or husband. Use condoms. Discuss your risk factors with your gynecologist, and get tested for HIV, Hepatitis B and C, and syphilis, especially when you start a new relationship. Insist that your partner does the same.

• Do Move Your Body Every Day: Get yourself into the habit of working out, and don’t let excuses (even really good ones) get in the way of giving yourself this daily gift. Obesity is the culprit in many serious illnesses, including certain cancers. One third of all cancer deaths are related to obesity, physical inactivity, or poor nutrition. Make fitness a lifelong commitment.

• Don’t Ignore Your Young Bones: Osteoporosis is a disease of the bones that we associate with aging, and rightly so. But, it takes time to get there. Poor nutrition, specifically a lack of adequate amounts of calcium and Vitamin D (which helps the body to absorb the calcium) is partly to blame. A more powerful contributor is the lack of regular strength-training exercises.

• Do Save More and Spend Less: Retirement is, presumably, years away, but it’s never too early to plan for it. The more money you have when you reach 50, the less stress and anxiety you will have. One of the biggest fears among women over 50 is not having enough money to live a good life as they age. It’s not always easy to do, but the sooner you start saving the better you will be down the road.

• Don’t Be Apathetic: We’re all busy with family, work, and friends… but that’s no excuse to stop thinking about causes that are important to us and to the world. The world is weary, it seems, from the economy, jobs, war, politics, and are turning away from getting involved. More than ever, we need the energy and ideas that youth can provide. Get involved, stay involved. Be the change.

• Do Embrace Your Age: Don’t fight aging. Embrace it. This doesn’t mean you should spend your life focused on getting older, and how to stop the process. On the contrary, live fully engaged with each year of your life, embracing the future ones with joy. It is a very powerful concept — letting go of your younger self, and embracing and loving your aging self. Treat yourself with kindness and respect, and take care of you — body, mind, and soul — as you would your children, your family and your friends.

For more information on living your best life after 50, visit www.bestofeverythingafter50.com. Staying connected is a powerful tool: “Friend” me on Facebook and “Tweet” me on Twitter (BGrufferman). Be well, and stay in touch!

Article source: http://blogs.jpost.com/content/ten-commandments-turning-50-manifesto-all-ages

The track starts its thoroughbred season at 7 p.m. Friday. Live racing continues Saturday (7 p.m.), Sunday (5 p.m.) and Monday (1:20 p.m.). For first-timers who come just to observe, it’s a sure thing.

Start at the paddock. About 20 minutes before each race, handlers walk horses from barns to the paddock. Jockeys, trainers, owners and officials await them. Horses know what’s up. They’ve have had their food pulled. The abrupt diet change alerts them that race time nears.

Reaching the paddock is another tip off. They’ve been confined, left to stare quietly at drab stable walls. Now people are everywhere. They flit their eyes from stranger to stranger. Paddock anxieties often make a horse extra frisky, even unruly.

Ten minutes before a race, jockeys mount. Then horses parade from paddock to the track. That short stroll seems to sooth a horse’s edginess.

Jockeys, too, are a study for the first-time spectator. Faces reveal the hopes and challenges of racing. Youthful riders seem to smile more than seasoned veterans. It’s as though they’re eager for thousands of races. The face of an older rider reveals he has put in his time. Those face wrinkles might be from years of minimal eating to prevent weight gain.

For the observer, there’s one place to be at race time (post time). SHRP races of one mile or more begin in front of the grandstand. The observer should move close to the starting gate. Though racing is a visual sport, it is auditory, too.

Horses “load” into starting positions. Assistant starters help jockeys enter gates in numerical order, then snap closed the barrier behind each horse. Younger horses in a first or second race are more likely to act up than a seasoned runner. A tractor connects to the starting gate.

When each horse settles, the starter pushes a button. Gates burst open in sync as a bell sounds loudly. Dirt flies as horses dash to the first turn. Unnoticed by most, the tractor slowly pulls the starting gate to trackside. When horses complete their oval, the gate will be out of their path.

It’s easy to observe racing. For an SHRP first-timer hoping to wager successfully, it’s like trying to beat the Baltimore Ravens at home with a rookie quarterback.

The track’s Rookie Room is a good starting place for the hopeful bettor. Newcomers can ask questions and get candid, plain-spoken answers.

SHRP sells a variety of wagering aids. Programs are popular. The tabloid Daily Racing Form offers tips.

It includes so-called Beyer numbers. Developed four decades ago by sports writer and Harvard scholar Andrew Beyer, the numbers compare speeds of horses, no matter where they raced.

Beyer numbers are boldfaced. They’re found on the left end of each horse’s running lines. Running lines detail, start to finish, a horse’s performance in each recent race.

horsechronicler@gmail.com

Article source: http://www.chron.com/sports/article/Horse-racing-notebook-Track-first-timers-can-2619081.php