Charlie was a regular visitor at the race track.
One afternoon he noticed an unusual sight. Right
before the first race, a Catholic priest visited
one of the horses in the stable area and gave it
a blessing. Charlie watched the horse race very
carefully, and sure enough the blessed horse
came in first!
Charlie followed the priest before the next race,
and again the priest went to the stables and
performed a similar procedure. Charlie played a
hunch and put a couple of dollars on the blessed
horse. Sure enough, the blessed horse came in by
two lengths and Charlie won close to fifty bucks!
The priest continued the same procedure through
the next few races and the horse won each time.
So between races Charlie left the track and went
to the bank to withdraw his life's savings,
$20,000. The biggest race of the day was the last
one. Charlie followed the priest and watched care-
fully which horse he blessed.
He then went to the betting window and put his
whole bundle of cash on that horse, to win. Then
Charlie went out to watch the horses race. Down
the stretch they came and as they crossed the
finish line, the horse Charlie's fortune was bet
on was far behind ... dead last! Charlie was
crushed.
He located the priest and told him that he had
been watching him bless the horses which all
became winners throughout the day. Charlie then
asked, "What happened to the last horse which
you blessed? Because of your failure on that last
horse, I have lost my entire life's savings."
"That's the trouble with you Protestants," sighed
the priest, "you never could tell the difference
between a blessing and the Last Rites."
#board-2412
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit." - Aristotle
AI
