Horse-race spectators keep their eyes up front, where the money rides. Nobody watches a loser.
In the fourth race at New York's Aqueduct race track last week, the chalk players cheered as Miss Stowaway, the odds-on favorite, got away fast, ran easily, and finished under wraps. Few noticed that five furlongs back a 40-to-1 longshot called Plenty Papaya broke skittishly from the starting gate and lunged for the outer rail. Aboard the black two-year-old filly, Jockey Roy L. Gilbert, 22, a lanky kid from the mountains of eastern Kentucky, was pushing his hottest winning streak. Seven years away from his first job...