Commanding the Jeep Main Battle Tank on a blitzkrieg westbound on I-74, my determined focus on the roadway led me to forget about charging my trusty Android Galaxy S8000. An hour or so into our wagering assault I observed a low charge on my Android and so I powered it off during the bulk of our parimutuel mission. As such, there are but a few surviving digital images with which to visually convey this narrative.
I'd spent much of the preceding week in blissful solitude - just a boy and his Daily Racing Form - studying with exacting detail the facts and figures found within the past performances of hundreds of horses from five continents, just as I do every October that the Reds aren't in the World Series. [If you were looking for a mention about the stunning result to this year's Fall Classic, that's a subject for Jude's blog "Cubilation." The title is a mash-up of the words Cubs and jubilation.] Jude updates it about as often as he buys lunch for me and Joe.
Here are a few international gems discovered within the sacred pages of this year's DRF Breeders' Cup Advance issue:
We think, correctly, that the Kentucky Derby 20-horse field is too large by about six thoroughbreds. At least over the course of a mile and a quarter there is some distance of terrain over which the field might separate. One of our visiting European competitors took part earlier in a six-furlong (or three-quarters of a mile) 23-horse sprint. Talk about your cavalry charges, indeed!
Another of our trans-Atlantic equine friends once took part in a race held on an English course laid out in a figure eight. Good luck applying your traditional North American-centric handicapping principles to that bewildering outing!
Yet another put upon Old World racehorse recently carried 140 pounds. It's routine for horses in Europe to carry more weight than their North American counterparts but even so, 140 pounds is just about the upper limit. If jockeys weigh 110 .lbs, more or less, this unfortunate steed carried the equivalent of a jockey (in this example, the excellent British jock Ryan Moore) plus 120 McDonald's Quarter Pounder cheeseburgers.
Year after year and seemingly without fail the maitre d'racino seats us on the third tier of four, high above the track and just steps below the all-you-can-shovel prime rib buffet. In past excursions we've been fortunate enough to have an automated betting machine immediately adjacent to our table on the tier immediately below. We were surprised to find this year that our betting machine had been replaced with a human-operated betting terminal. A veritable betting window without the window!
That is the wagering clerk you see just over my right shoulder taking bets from a green polo shirted bettor. While anyone else would have had to get up from their table and make a short walk over to the terminal, we lucky elements of Mr B's cosa nostra could merely reach over the ledge to make our bets. Ad slogan: Improved wagering opportunities! Now without getting up from your seat at table #308! Thank God for good ol' American sedentary ingenuity. How many of the calories from my turkey sammich, Saratoga chips, two sugar cookies, one M&M cookie, three servings of prime rib, two servings of mashed potatoes with gravy, a dozen or so steamed carrots, helping of corn pudding, bowl of beef & vegetable soup, and chocolate cake would you estimate I burned off that day? I eschewed the shrimp cocktail and clam chowder both of which Mr B extolled the virtues thereof. One could also have dined on roast beef, ham, chicken, haddock, potato salad, Asian stir fry, pasta, tossed salads, chips, pretzels..... It should be evident why Mr B prefers Shelbyville to any other race day alternatives.
Soon, between mammoth caloric intakes, we got down to the business at hand. Right out of the gate, to exploit an obvious horse racing term, my week-long handicapping sabbatical paid off handsomely when I hit Win and Place on a 30-1 long shot. In the very next race my 18-1 "pick o' the day" ran third, killing my Win and Place wager on her, but the filly's on-the-board finish at long odds swelled the payout on my successful Superfecta nobly aided by the winning ride of the greatest jockey in the history of mankind, Lanfranco "Frankie" Dettori. When I hit the back end of my Win and Place wager in the race that immediately followed I basked in the shower of adulation Mr B poured upon me. Or was that au jus which splashed from his plate? At any rate, after the first three Breeders' Cup races I was up big and - best of all - playing with house money for the rest of the afternoon and evening.
But do not mistake playing with house money, as it were [that's a misnomer; at the races you're not betting against the house but rather against other bettors. It was their money I was walking around with. OK, OK. Walking back and forth to the buffet with. Happy?], with going home flush with added cash reserves. So please put down that phone. Don't alert the IRS just yet.
As the day wore on, and despite twice more cashing winning tickets on Win/Place wagers (including one at odds of 12-1), the tide inexorably turned against me. This was due, yes, to a decreased rate of winners but also due - perhaps primarily - to my wagering strategy. Like a champion golfer who nevertheless tinkers with his swing in order to improve his game, I've been adjusting my wagering strategies in recent years. I've eased off considerably from the Exactas and Trifectas [full disclosure; of Saturday's nine Breeders' Cup races I placed 4 Exacta Box wagers and one Tri Box wager - all losers], focusing my parimutuel efforts on the good old fashioned Win/Place wager as well as Pick Threes, Pick Fours, the Derby Day & BC Day Pick Sixes and ten-cent Superfectas (a relatively recent development in wagering and they cost the bettor a mere $2.40, inexpensive!). Excepting the ten-cent Supers, this strategy allows me to just focus on one horse (winning) per race and sets aside the arduous task of figuring out a deeper order of finish for each race. I think my adjustments are paying off, to grossly exploit another wagering term, as you might compare the volume of winning tickets I cashed on Saturday compared with other race days of recent vintage.
The explanation for why I didn't charter a helicopter ride home from the track was that I calculated a plan of attack that emphasized using my early windfall to fund a series of rolling Pick Threes with a buy-in substantially higher than the minimum fifty-cent variety. Had I wagered the minimum Pick 3 and Pick 4 amounts I would have driven home - or choppered - a victorious conqueror. Instead, my calculations and my mounting losses found me minutes before the last race of the day, the $6 million Classic, at just about the break-even point. In fact, for the BC Classic I placed a $12 wager on a five-horse Superfecta Box which - were it to be a loser (and it was) - would have ended my day precisely even, not one dollar up nor down.
And then it happened......
I looked down at my growing stack of dead tickets and saw that I still had a betting machine voucher (betting machines don't pay out in cash money, only in vouchers which may be used again at a betting machine, at a betting window or redeemed for cash at a betting window) in the amount of $36.
Hmmm.... what to do? What to do?
The 3-to-5 odds-on favorite in the Classic was the world's #1 ranked horse (seriously, this really is a thing) California Chrome. The second wagering choice was Arrogate at Even Money odds. Certainly, the Classic was a two-horse race and neither offered an attractive wagering proposition as a single. And so there I sat 15 minutes to post, peppering The Old Master of the Turf with a variety of pace scenarios in which an alternate outcome could theoretically result in a more profitable payout. In the final analysis we determined it really was simply a two-horse race. Looking at the odds, Mr B posited that if the odds on California Chrome were to rise to Even Money that he himself would "load up" on Chrome. With minutes to go and millions of dollars already wagered into the betting pools it would have taken a miracle - or a "late money" wager(s) in the tens of thousands - to change the odds that dramatically. And change they did! Chrome rose to 8-5, Arrogate dropped to 4-5 and I dropped my $36 voucher on a straight Win bet on California Chrome.
Post time! "Racing!"
The gates opened and California Chrome jumped out to an early lead. He led the field through the opening quarter mile, the opening half mile and through the first three-quarters of a mile in easy fractions. Turning for home Arrogate, running fifth early, made his move on California Chrome and the anticipated two-horse duel was fully engaged. Mere strides from the finish Chrome was still ahead in the race just as, metaphorically, I had been ahead for the whole day. Chrome was caught and passed in the shadow of the finish line, a dissatisfying end to what had been a successful race up to that point. Similarly, I had a disappointing end to what had been a wildly successful day of wagering. For that sunny Indiana day and cool Hoosier state autumn evening California Chrome was my spirit animal. As he went, so did I.
I exited Shelbyville down just the $36 I wagered with my voucher.
The Old Master had a sizable straight Exacta that had Arrogate on top of Chrome. This information he did not share with me until after the race.
The race itself lived up to its name. It truly was a classic that long will be remembered. Take a look at my spirit animal here and see the parallels in my own experience that day.
On-track wagering at Santa Anita for Saturday's Breeders' Cup totaled $14 million. Off-track wagering soared to $95 millionz, worldwide.
The statistic that most of you are interested to know (?) is how well my handicapping stacked up against that of the pros at the Daily Racing Form. For this year's BC, the DRF assembled 15 members of its illustrious staff to make their picks for all nine of Saturday's BC races. Just one DRF expert, Chuck Kuehhas and his five winners (!), exceeded my three correct Win picks. Two DRF writers - David Grening and Dan Illman - equaled my total. Four pros who shall remain nameless were shut out completely.
Remember my #1 tip when wagering on the Breeders' Cup; Don't bet favorites!
Next year's Breeders' Cup will be hosted by southern California's other notable racetrack, Del Mar. Del Mar opened in 1937 and was built by a partnership which included, among others, Bing Crosby and Gary Cooper. It's popular slogan is "Where the turf meets the surf."
Roll the credits!
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