A Grant Wood couple strolled by, arm in arm. The man disengaged himself to shove a cigar into his mouth.

I walked up to the window and put two dollars on Red Beret. (His parents were Thinking Cap and Rebel Rose; that's where they got the name, I guess.) The odds were 10-1.

I watched Red Beret being led past the crowd at the paddock. His eyes looked sad. The identifier checked the tattoo on his lips, and he joined the other horses.

"He's a stick-out to win," said a small hunched man next to me, pointing at Great Mystery, the favorite. "He's gonna win for me, ya know?" He tapped me affectionately on the arm and walked away.

THE horses approached the crowd on their way to the starting gate and broke into a canter. Overhead, a plane was advertising for the dog races-"Change Your Luck; Raynham Opens Tonite." The track was smooth and brown and neatly furrowed. I looked at the big board. The crowd was betting the favorite. The odds were 7-5 on Great Mystery.

The space underneath the grandstand was empty. Everyone was either out near the track or watching the closed-circuit TV monitor.

"They're at the post.... They're in the gate.... And they're off!" "And it's Sitka D. on the outside, followed by Great Mystery, followed by Freezing Rain, then it's..." As the horses approached the stretch, the crowd began responding to the announcer's litany. "And it's Great Mystery, then Sitka D...."

"Come on Red Beret. Come ON!"

"Way to go, Sitka!"

It was Great Mystery. I tore up my ticket and watched Phil Grimm, the winning jockey, being led before the crowd.

"That's the way to ride him, Phil."

"Atta boy. You can eat 'em up here. Go to Aqueduct. You'll make some bread there."

A little boy held Mystery's halter. "Hey, Billy, did you ride him?" someone called. The boy shook his head.

A cloud of confetti blew into the air. Grimm doffed his cap. A groom led him over to the paddock where he posed for a picture with two squirming little girls in yellow Easter dresses. Flash, and it was over.

OUTSIDE, the wind wrapped the newspapers around the poles of the arcade. An old woman was selling pencils by the gate.

The crowd boarded the subway. "Everybody push. Hurry, hurry," an old man said sarcastically. "Push like hell. It's an emergency."

"Him and me had a couple drinks," the man next to me was telling his neighbor. "He's a nice fella. Jesus Christ, what a hell of a nice guy. So how ya been?"

"Oh, we're getting along all right."

"Yeah, ya gotta enjoy life." And he sighed.