More than a year later, Myriam flourished as a quiz bowler on top of her mathletic prowess. Which made VA attend the MSNCT for the first time, and finish 21st.
However, Futurity Force never regained his form of the season where Camden first bought his 10% share. The other 3 owners decide to have Futurity Force run one last season until he's sold for repurposing.
With the demands of Myriam's education ramping up, he does not feel like it's a good idea to make her bet on horse races as intensely as she used to in middle school. While the thoroughbred season is underway, he gets into a videoconference with his partners...
"Ladies and gentlemen, I may be wondering if the trainer and vet we work with might be willing to work with thoroughbreds..." Camden asks his partners. "It will make everyone's lives easier if we just stick with these people"
"What about the farrier then?" Diego asks him, believing that some farriers can only work with quarter horses or thoroughbreds.
"Our farrier works with a variety of horse breeds" Alan answers Diego.
More than ever, I feel like being a principal is like being a racehorse owner. The joy you get out of principalship comes from seeing the students succeed, much like getting into the winner's circle after your horse wins a race. Teachers, medical personnel (i.e. nurse, psychologist and so on) and support personnel are to a principal what a trainer, jockey, vet and farrier respectively are to a racehorse owner. You also know going in that you only have a limited time with the kids or the racehorse, Camden gets lost while they are talking about the experience of the vet and trainer with thoroughbreds. At the end of it, though, he seems satisfied with these people's ability to service thoroughbreds.
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And yet, well into the finals season, he receives a visit from the superintendent, which seems to bode poorly for him. However, he knows the superintendent couldn't carry out inspections while first-semester finals happen.
"Oh, Mr. Superintendent, I didn't expect you to come here today!" Camden gasps when Glen arrives. "Last I met you, it was at a horse race and I think the time has come to partner up and gain ownership of a racehorse"
"Don't tell me that you plan on using the advertising revenue from your LED sign to pay for it!" Glen warns Camden and is about to yell at Lacassine's principal.
"Now that our LED sign paid for itself, and then some, maybe we should use the money for the benefit of the kids. Such as a racehorse for the school's FFA club to maintain"
"Don't go around thinking that, if you pay for the racehorse out of the advertising revenue, and then charge the costs of ownership against the FFA club's budget, it will make for an allowable use of school money! If you want to own a racehorse, in whole or in part, you will have to do so out of your personal funds!"
"And you're no better, sir: you used VA's kids, and especially girls, as if they were racehorses! You acted like a racehorse owner towards them, you attempted to squeeze every last drop from their intellect! You only need to look at the various... races to the IMO the Venomous Agendas were entered!" he tries to get back at Glen.
"Do you have any idea of how expensive it is to own a racehorse? Also, don't go around thinking that racehorse owners are exploitative towards their horses, as you seem to be implying! I have a better idea for using the advertising revenue: buying additional books for the math team!"
While Camden calls upon its math team coach, he pulls out a tentative budget assuming the racehorse wouldn't earn any prize money for the year.
"Thirty grand per year on a racehorse? Are you serious? Sometimes I feel like you sound more like an intrapreneur than a principal; you're on the verge of embezzling school funds for gambling!" Glen tells him.
"Racehorse ownership is a long-term kind of gambling, like investing in a fad"
"So while it might differ from racetrack betting, you admit it is gambling"
"What is the meaning of this?" Lacassine's mathletics coach asks the two men upon arriving at the principal's office. "You seem to be fighting over horse racing?"
"We were waiting for you" Glen answers the mathletics coach. "It's about how to spend the money from the LED signage; because the parish is paying for mathletics out of MSPGO money, we want to see everyone succeed. And I heard Lacassine got a mathlete to the AIME for the first time"
"Of course, Derrick won't be, like, Faith, Valerie or even Salome, they are some of the most spectacular mathletes in recent memory. But we need to get some training materials for it" the math team's coach then retorts.
"I may as well order other training materials for middle school mathletics as well, and supply everything for the whole parish, again out of MSPGO money" Glen then realizes the rest of the parish is missing training materials in mathletics.
"In a way, being a principal is much like being a racehorse owner" Lacassine's principal then retorts to the other two.
OK, I get it, I might want to save myself the hassle of a competitive bid. But, on the other hand, since my previous attempts at using school property to raise my bankroll undermined the parish's trust in me, I should do my research on claiming races before I hand over the horse so claimed to Lacassine. Some of the horses in a claiming race can be inexpensive but they're black boxes... Camden thinks of what options he has left. He then reviews the parish's purchasing policy to see if he can claim a horse in Lacassine's name without having to open a competitive bid. He then has the secretary add vendors in the school's system, for the vet, farrier, trainer and jockey so he can have the school pay for the horse's expenses.
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When he returns home that day, upon realizing that he can claim horses at races for as little as $10,000, he is going through yet another phase of trying to use Myriam for his own ends.
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"For the holidays, to make sure that we get the best possible Christmas, I want you to bet on horse races, as many bets as we can get!" Camden explains the plan to his daughter.
"Have a certain target?" Myriam asks him.
"Ten thousand dollars; as with last time, gains from your bankroll will be used for that end"
Last time, it was "just" $750 and it was done over a single weekend. Now Daddy is essentially using me as some sort of semi-professional bettor whenever he needs money! Myriam tries her best to avoid screaming or fuming at her father. And yet, she starts crying.
"What are you using the ten grand for?" Myriam sobs, because his dad has been incredibly opaque in the past.
"Why do you want to know this?" an angry dad asks her.
"I won't help you get any of the ten grand if I don't know what this money is used for!" Myriam keeps crying.
"There will be times at work where you will be given tasks without being given the rationale. In the public sector, the rationale you might be looking for could end up being a state secret. That is, as much as knowing the rationale could help you execute a task, it could then be actually against the law for you to know it. Depending on the level of secrecy of the rationale and your security clearance of course. You're just an ungrateful bettor!"
This fight devolves into a fight over topics such as "how the ungrateful of yesterday became the heroes of today", especially in a human rights history and policy context. A while later...
"One day, I will be able to bet on horse races on my own terms! I will be setting my own fundraising targets, and playing for clearly defined goals and reasons! No longer will I be at your beck and call as a bettor!" Myriam yells at her father, fed up with the increasing size of her gambling commitments to her father.
"Honey, I have seen a lot of bettors who, while playing well with someone else, flounder when betting on their own! You're not ready for independent betting! However, the best way to get to the ten grand requires us playing for fourteen to sixteen hours a day, for the whole duration of the holidays, because our bankroll is our bottleneck"
"You still haven't answered my initial question: what are you using the ten grand for?" Myriam keeps pestering him for an answer to this question, which she deems vital for her to even consider helping him earn $10k by betting on horse races over the holidays.
"Saving up for Jacob's college education. Are you happy now?" Camden answers while trying to conceal his true motives from her, hoping that this false information will allow her to soldier on for very long hours of gambling.
"I'm not happy!" Myriam sighs, but she feels like a $10k gap in her brother's college fund is a little weird to be betting all day over the holidays. "I won't play with you until you have earned that amount of profit!"
"Fine, I guess you're ok with not playing for months, rather than playing for two weeks I forecast it will take with you!"
So while neither of the following has been an issue to the pair online thus far, they need to pay attention to both payout and betting limits over the holidays. What they will need to remain mindful of is to resist the temptation to go directly for the exotic bet, in an attempt to quickly get to the $10k objective.
However, with Myriam's abject refusal to bet on horse races until dad earns the $10k in profits he seeks, profits seem to be slower to come by than he would have liked. Not to mention asking for W-9s from the vet, farrier, trainer, the LRC and Delta Downs.
The jockey I can pay from my own pocket; it costs about $100-150 per race, Camden believes that his plan to claim a horse and then hand it over to the school would work better if he only has the school pay for the expenses for which W-9s can be found. And jockeys usually didn't. Oh well, I can always get the secretary to borrow the checkbook on a day there's a horse to claim I like. And then cut a check for the claiming amount. And then charge the resulting expenses to "other expenses" if all else fails. And have the school's insurer insure the horse, too...
Ultimately, while he might have earned profit over the holidays, he didn't earn enough to claim the horse he wants without having to use the school's checkbook to stake a claim on a thoroughbred. Speaking of which, he reviews the horses available for claiming. And yet, for what profits he did make over the holidays, he actually used these to save up for Jacob's college education.
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With the school's checkbook on hand, at the first opportunity in January, he goes to the track to wager for the first time without Myriam, and reviews the horse claiming procedure upon arriving at the racetrack. He then goes straight to the race secretary to fill out the claiming forms, cut the check and then stake the claim on Full Moon Rising in race 3. He feels confident in the claim he staked for some reason. The joke's on Lacassine now that I bought a racehorse for them as some "other" expense, a satisfied Camden then starts laughing manically as he places a hasty $5 show bet on race 1.
"You're back!" Alan exclaims while on the first row for the first race.
"While claiming races require claims to be staked for a certain amount, prior to a race, I wonder sometimes if it's common for horses to go unclaimed" Camden asks him.
"Very common. On average, here, only one or two horses get claimed" Diego answers him, back from a last-minute wager.
I can win without Myriam, but will Myriam forgive me if I allow her to play again tomorrow? She must have spent the holidays training for the AIME along with Faith... or in quiz bowl; I don't know in which proportions though. I ought to give her more freedom in how she spends her gains from horse race betting! Camden starts feeling guilty about this entire process.
By the time he starts betting on race 3, the same analysis leads him to also bet on his top 2 picks for the exacta. Full Moon Rising for the win, what he would have claimed instead (if Full Moon Rising was scratched) coming in second.
"The problem with claiming races is that some unscrupulous trainers or owners want to use a claiming race to make that horse someone's else problem" Brianna adds to this discussion of claiming races.
"Who do you know who would want to claim a horse?" Alan asks Camden, believing that he wouldn't be asking all these questions about horse claiming if he didn't at least know someone who would be interested in doing so.
"Some relatives might be interested in claiming racehorses in the future"
And, unlike those owners who are common fixtures whenever horse racing comes under fire in the media, Camden doesn't actually hit me as the kind of guy who would "rock the boat" in the pursuit of horse racing success, Alan starts reflecting on what kind of racehorse owners would Camden's relatives be.
While Camden keeps quiet about using Lacassine's checkbook to pay for the claim, when the call to the post bugle is sounded for race 3, he pays special attention to Full Moon Rising. In this kilometer-long race, he could only think of the money he stands to win based on his betting $100 on an exacta combination. A whopping $5800, net of the takeout, for which he crosses his fingers. After losing his wager on the second race, winning the wager was a relief to him. At the end of it:
"Since I won it big tonight, I will be paying for dinner" Camden announces to the other partners in Futurity Force.
Yes, hopefully the horse will pay back the price I had the school pay for it. However, I know that, by having Lacassine own Full Moon Rising, Lacassine now has title to any future winnings from that horse, Camden starts thinking of what his future bets are going to be for the night. He would love to ramp up his bets, but he must be mindful of his profits since the start of the holidays. This will put a straitjacket into his ability to ramp up betting since he wants to maintain appearances at home.
With all things said and done, he returns home with a net profit of $2970. However, his wife would be asking questions about his outing at Delta Downs:
"Where have you been?" an unhappy Brittany asks him, not knowing anything about this outing in advance.
"It's the yearly meeting for this event planning business we bought a ten percent stake in years ago. This year, I return home with a dividend of two thousand nine hundred seventy dollars from it" Camden conjures an old lie from when he started owning racehorses.
"So it started making a profit. I hope you don't go out for business this late in the future"