Some 15 years ago, I found racing -- or perhaps you could say that it found me. Free tickets to the international Japan Cup took me to Tokyo Race Course and marked the beginning of a continuing affair with the horses.
I don't know what it was that captured me that first time at the track. Maybe it was the incredible energy of it all, the roaring crowd, the thundering hooves. Maybe it was my beginner's luck, the easy money, the simple fun of it. It could have been being surrounded by hundreds of thousands of people and suddenly realizing that no one, not one person, was staring at me; nor once did I hear the despised word gaijin.
That day I experienced a freedom I hadn't felt in a long time, a camaraderie with every person in the stands and a connection to the foreign runners and riders in the big race. We were in this together. I felt a part of it all.