I never asked Frank Pots and Pans if he bet on Badger Bo. He probably wouldn't have told me anyway, because Frank is not what you would call garrulous.

But he knows horse racing, which is more than I can say for myself.

Still, it looked like destiny. When Paul Soglin, the former mayor of Madison, asked me to accompany him and a couple of friends to Chicago on Thursday, to eat hot dogs and get rich playing the horses, I accepted immediately. I love horse racing even though I'm not any good at picking winners.

Then on Wednesday, the day before our adventure, Soglin dropped off the Daily Racing Form charts for the next day's action at Hawthorne Race Course in Stickney.

I scanned the first race and there it was: Badger Bo.

A horse named Badger Bo was running from the second position in the first race, and not only did I know it was named for UW men's basketball coach Bo Ryan, I knew the horse's owners. Or, more accurately, the former owners.

Until last spring, Badger Bo was owned by a small syndicate named Lloyd Madison Farms that includes Madison attorney Tim Sweeney. New owners claimed (bought) Badger Bo in April, but I knew Sweeney could still give me the inside dope on the horse. I called him Wednesday.

"This is a horse that will run all day long," Sweeney said. But he added that the race needed to be at least a mile for Badger Bo to show his best stuff.

Perfect, I thought. The race at Hawthorne was 1 1/16th miles.

We drove down Thursday morning. Soglin introduced me to his friend Bill Kessler, who is in the real estate business in Madison, and the three of us drove to the park-and-ride off Stoughton Road, where we picked up a large man who was introduced as Frank Pots and Pans.

It dawned on me that this was perhaps not his real name, although why Frank Pots and Pans doesn't want his real name in a family newspaper is apparently on a need-to-know basis.

The drive down was filled with stories of races past. Soglin, Kessler and Frank have been going to the races together for 30 years.

Kessler was recalling the time they left the track so broke they couldn't take the Interstate back to Madison because they couldn't pay the tolls.

"Since then we've left enough money in the car to get home," he said.

They actually win more than they lose. Soglin has been hooked since the 1970s, when he happened on a book called "Picking Winners" by Andrew Beyer. There's a science to it, largely based on studying a horse's past performances, and Soglin is good enough that a few years ago he beat out 500 other handicappers in a competition that put him in the Horseplayer World Series in Las Vegas.

Before getting to Hawthorne, we stopped at a small restaurant called Fat Tommy's for another Soglin passion, a Chicago hot dog. We were joined by Ed O'Farrell, Soglin's 77-year-old former elementary school gym teacher. The two hadn't seen each other in 40 years and had recently reconnected on the Internet. They embraced.

After lunch, Kessler said, "Ed is a gracious gentleman."

Frank Pots and Pans nodded. "Something we're not used to."

We were late getting to the track - mainly because Soglin and Kessler decided they needed a second hot dog - but made it in time to see Badger Bo walk onto the track with the other horses for the first race.

"It's destiny," I said, and put down a significant bet on Badger Bo to win.

Kessler and I watched the race from the rail. Soglin and Frank Pots and Pans were inside, the better to make bets on televised races from other tracks around the country.

I was right on the finish line when Badger Bo came charging past. Unfortunately, a horse named House of Usher charged past first. Badger Bo finished a close second.

On the drive down, explaining why they are still race fans after 30 years, Soglin said, "We have hope."

Wadding up my Badger Bo ticket, I remembered the Studs Terkel book, "Hope Dies Last."

I was going to ask Frank Pots and Pans if he ever read Studs Terkel but thought better of it.

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