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?”

An old man goes to a doctor. “What’s the problem?” the doctor says. “I can’t pee,” the old man says. “How old are you?” the doctor says. “Eighty-four,” the old man says.

 One of Webster’s many descriptions of the word “whip” reads: “An instrument, either a flexible rod or a flexible thong or lash attached to a handle, used for driving animals or administering corporal punishment.”

 Rick Violette Jr. thought about becoming a lawyer or entering politics when he was a student at Lowell University in his native Massachusetts. When he wasn't studying or attending class, he showed hunters and jumpers for a client who also owned racehorses. That was how his romance with the racetrack began.

    Trainer Wesley Ward didn’t invent “thinking outside the box,” but he sure is living it—joyfully and successfully: racing fillies vs. colts in graded stakes, running an America-maiden claiming winner in a stakes race at Ascot, giving a 10-pound apprentice his first mount at prestigious Saratoga, and skipping the Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita to watch his son in a cross country meet a couple thousand miles away in Florida.

A self-proclaimed “professional horse player,” Allard is at once dogmatic, enigmatic, pragmatic, and, when it comes to playing the Pick 6, pretty much automatic. Even though he turns 61 on April 26, 2015, pose any question, and Allard’s curious and expansive mind zeroes in on total and accurate recall. Like Jeopardy’s Alex Trebek behind the podium, he’s got all the right answers before the buzzer sounds.