The man in the blue jacket takes a sip from his drink, a Black-Eyed Susan. “Say,” he says, “there’s supposed to be booze in here! You don’t see anybody with one of those little flasks in their hip pocket, do you?”

For decades, a settlement in the Middle East seemed more likely to happen that an agreement on dates between South Florida’s three warring thoroughbred racetracks, Calder Raceway, Gulfstream Park and Hialeah Park.