Racing makes love connection

Usually we don’t know who the big winners are among DRF Tournaments regular players until after the contests end on Sunday night. But for Whitney weekend, this isn’t the case. Yesterday, DRFT player – and paddock bar regular – Chris “the Ghostbuster” Garafola successfully became engaged to be married at Saratoga.

“I love Saratoga, it’s my favorite place on earth,” said Garafola, a 36-year-old who works in finance for a media company. “I wanted to get engaged and what better place to do it. And I know everyone here at the paddock bar. It just made sense.”

Garafola had a sign made, “Will you marry me, Jordan?” which was draped from the deck above the taco place, and he hired a couple of string players to perform her favorite song, “Adore,” by singer-songwriter Amy Shark.

He met his intended, Jordan Hoyland, in an unusual manner. While it’s typical in 2018 for couples to meet online, this situation was a little different. Garafola, born in Connecticut, recently moved to San Antonio, Texas. For work. Hoyland lives in Darwin, Australia, in the Northern Territories, approximately 10,000 miles away.

The two met not on a dating site but playing a community video game online, “Game of Thrones Conquest.”

“People from all over the world band together in these clans and you get to know them,” Garafola explained.

The key moment in the relationship related to horses, of course. During the races on Preakness Day, Garafola logged into the game chat and saw that Hoyland had updated her profile picture to a shot of her riding a horse. He sent her a direct message and their conversations began in earnest.

That talk turned into a 24-hour chat session. Garafola found it easy to be his true self with her. “At that point I didn’t think I was ever going to meet her,” he admitted. “She lived on the other side of the world. It was easy to be totally honest and open.”

Eventually, Hoyland, who was 13 hours ahead, had to go to work Monday morning and the call ended, leaving Garafola to ask himself, “Wait a second. . .did I just fall in love?”

Their relationship continued to develop from there. Hoyland enjoys racing in Australia and has even worked at some race meets, both as a bartender and a teller. She’s a big fan of horses in general and was immediately impressed by Saratoga.

In real life, they only met last week for the first time in Texas. At least one of Garafola’s cronies from the paddock bar was relieved to find out that she actually existed. As for the proposal itself, Garafola had no doubt she would respond in the affirmative, but you have to remember, this is the place where Secretariat and American Pharoah got beat so he had to feel some palpable sense of relief once she said yes.

Garafola is a big fan of DRF Tournaments. “I play during the week and I’ll play direct qualifiers on the weekends if I have strong opinions,” he said. “I want to try to parlay a little into a lot.”

He sees a connection between tournament play and online gaming. “There’s a lot of math in both,” he said. “With the game, it’s all about how many troops you’re going to send out and what type of troop matches up well against what other kind of troop. In a certain situation, you might have a 70 percent edge in a battle. That’s a lot like being three deep in the last leg of a pick four.”

He also believes racing could learn from the gaming world. “Horse racing culture is great once you get everyone in the same place,” he said. “Online in racing, you can be aware of other players, but you don’t meet people in the same way. Even with horse racing twitter, you need to know where to go to get anything out of that.”

By contrast, in online gaming it’s easier to find your people. “There is an open door, communal place for everyone to go and just start talking,” he said. “It would be great if we could have that with racing as a way to connect everyone. It’s harder in racing for new people who are entering from outside to be accepted.”

In his vision, these connections could really help to develop the sport’s fan base. “We’re all here for the same reason,” he continued. “We all love to do this, so why not be open to having other people come do it with us. It’s so much more fun when you can share it with other people.”

Garafola and Hoyland’s new life together is off to a great start. With friends and family around, the celebration was underway as soon as she said yes, but Garafola had another little matter to attend to: the construction of his pick five ticket. He asked her if she’d mind if he went off by himself for a few minutes.

“She said, ‘Absolutely, do your thing,’ and I went off to make my bet,” Garafola reported.

This one is definitely a keeper.