When I was 11 and my sister 9, my parents won the Canadian Loto, $1 million. Up to then we'd scraped by on a tiny 10 acre farm, with both parents working a p/t 2nd job to make ends meet. We were poor, in retrospect, but my parents showered us and each other with love, so I never felt deprived of a thing. They were terrified of the changes the Loto would bring, so didn't buy a thing for 6 months, and that was a pickup truck with air conditioning (completely foreign to me and my sister- we'd all go sit in the pickup, parked in the back yard, and run the AC while marveling at the shiny controls and amazing cold air. Then they bought a tractor. Their first "fun" purchase was a yearling thoroughbred bought for $5,000 (which is nothing/scrapyard for race horses). They had always loved reading The Daily Racing Form, then going to the racetrack with $20 hard earned cash- and they were good- often coming home with winnings, and almost never having lost the entire $20. They had dreamed of one day owning 1/4 share in a basement level claiming horses, so the $5k yearling purchase was a dream fulfilled... except it became so, SO much more, bigger, EVERYTHING they hadn't dreamed possible (except SHOULD have, after winning the $1 million Loto). They named the gelding Loto Canada, and Loto lived up to his namesake from his first start, winning an Allowance Maiden race by 5 lengths. He ended his two year old campaign winning 5 of 7 races, with 3 Stake Races, a 2nd place, ad a Show, earning over $105,000. By his 3rd year season, he fell into the National Spotlight, and he was being pointed toward the Kentucky Derby. That meant our parents flying around the country in Commercial Airline flights, private Lear Jets, and even a couple Railroad expeditions. It wasn't unusual for them to be gone for 2 or 3 weeks at a time. When they WERE home, they were either preoccupied worrying about Loto's next race, and/or out most nights at a Chinese restaurant to hang out with/strategy plan Loto's path to the Derby with Loto's trainer. My sister and I developed an emotional bond to Fried Rice and Egg Foo Yung that felt as reassuring as a pacifier is to a toddler being weaned from breast feeding. For the ensuing 5 years our folks bought or bred approximately 35 more thoroughbreds, and for that same period of time, my sister and I grew a monumental sized resentment towards the horses, with our anger silently ballooning with each of my basketball games they missed, every Girl Scout meeting my sister couldn't host at our home, and with the 1am phone calls from Southern Cal hotels and Arkansas motels, we heard the passion and excitement our parents felt about the horses, while we felt we were the burden of obligation that couldn't hope to compete with the Parade to Post, the $50 Parimutual Ticket Window, the Sports Illustrated Writer and Photographer, or the film crew from the TV show, That's Incredible! interviewing them to show their Incredible Luck. But my parents were Good People, and deserved all the good things they found in their lives. Mom grew up in an orphanage, while dad was never good enough for his father, and lacked the confidence to stay in college more than one semester. There's more to the story, but I've already hijacked your tome with this meandering saga- I was just going to mention the Unsupervised Teen Years, but then everything related came gushing out. I sincerely apologize. I don't ever talk about those events in my life, and it felt good getting it out. Thank you!