Poor Winners
What's the worst thing that can happen to a horseplayer?
Being called that, for starters: horseplayer, railbird, deadbeat, sucker — most descriptions of investing in horse race futures are cut from the cloth of a Damon Runyon zoot suit. Unless an orphan and an old guy with a limp own a horse, thoroughbred racing fiction is dominated by heavy underdogs. As garbage has become known as refuse, and as fighting hopeless slot odds has become "gaming," so too should horseplayers have a fresher and greener term for what they do, something like "investing." The great genius of the pari-mutuel wagering system mandates that the losers to pay the winners. Look around. There are more losers looking for luck than anytime in history; thus, the greater rewards for people with good sense. True, winners pay the losers at poker. But net worth, math, luck and gamesmanship figure more in poker than does problem-solving. Try to bluff a tote board. The gravitation of full blown idiots from horse racing to poker and slots is a trend that needs to be reversed if I am to have some of what I want.
The worst thing that can happen to somebody who wagers on horses ("wagers" sounds more business-like than "bets") is to be right without collecting enough.
The most recent Belmont Stakes is an example of an imperfect wagering storm: I can't tell you how many people have said that they had Summer Bird to win, but didn't have the Exacta; which should have been close to impossible. Summer Bird was no Scarlet Tanager. It wasn't easy to spot. A Scarlet Tanager is a bird that is a couple of hues above bright, screaming red. The Belmont long shot looked like it would be the second-best bird at the wire. If you were good enough to have played the winner, which paid $25.80 for the victory, you had to have Dunkirk ($5.40 for the place), and the Exacta, $121. Summer Bird was puzzling. Dunkirk made sense.
Imagine collecting $25.80 for the surprising victory, then subtracting $20 on losing Exacta wagers, for a take of $5.40; for an absolutely brilliant job of handicapping.
I know people who had Summer Bird, but didn't play Dunkirk because they didn't like him. Like? It's not the Westminster Poodle Group. You have to "like" everybody who could win or run second.
Sometimes great handicapping is only a start.
Betting correctly is the rest of the story.
Dunkirk was injured during the race and was fortunate to hang in for second. It was lucky he wasn't taken down. Yet the people who liked Dunkirk were all over the Exacta with the winner.
You can't let "gamblers" take what's rightfully ours.
If you think a horse with double digit odds can win a race, you have to think about the "All" button. If you're right about a $25 winner, that's skill. That makes "All" skillful as well.
Not betting enough is the chief reason so many people have $25 winners but no $120 Exactas.
You have to take $50 more to the horse races, it's that simple. To get the extra money, you could put $20 into a quarter slot machine and start praying. Playing a slot hooked to a track, it's not like you're bailing out Vegas. Or you can take up writing, or, better still, thinking up plots for somebody else to write. As you might have noticed, the world is in the throes of a creative crisis of tragic proportions. TV and movies have gotten so lousy, upon occasion they pay for ideas. I just got through watching a new series on Showtime called "Nurse Jackie." It stars Edie Falco's hair, acting short, and features pill-popping nurses, moronic doctors, and dead patients. It makes a person think about scheduling his or her next physical in Asia. The show is so bad Carmelo Sporano is spinning in her grave.
The thing to remember about being right is the following. Being right is reward enough only when it occurs outside sports.
Write to Jay at jaycronley@yahoo.com.
