Chapter 2 - Man Meets Horse

Growing track attendance means greater rewards for the skillful bettor.

Mr. John Q. Racing fan is fast outnumbering every other sport fan as racetrack attendance has almost doubled in the past ten years. While many sports are singing the blues over attendance, the little fellow who has taken over the avocation of the bluebloods in the past forty years is making racing the fastest growing sport in the country.

This surge to the tracks opens wide new opportunities for the bettor who can think for himself, be he a $2 garden variety or a $2,000 custom operator. For the larger the crowd, the more capricious the betting; and, after all, it is the choice of the crowd that determines the odds. The largest number of new fans would rather ride on a hunch than study a book such as this which sets forth the principles of selecting winners. While thousands swing and sway on hunches about horses' names, or riding with the favorite, the bettor who avoids the popular stampede and selects according to a proven system stands to benefit from the increasing betting totals.

As additional thousands push through the turnstiles in the 24 states which have pari-mutuel betting (a list of these states and major race tracks is given in Appendix B), now is the time to learn the professional approach to picking winners. The goal of this book is to help new racing fans as well as old veterans go home from the races with the good feeling that comes from a billfold fattened in the course of an exciting day of matching wits against man, horse, and machine. Succeeding chapters will show how to approach racing as a skillful sport rather than a harum-scarum guessing game. Once the old wives' tales (and Hollywood's) about betting are dispelled, the reader will move on in later chapters to learn the actual elements used to select winners skillfully Thirty or more proven systems tested by the author and other experts are included.

Contrary to the belief of many fans, a horse picked by a system can give a player all the thrills and action of a selection arrived at by hunch or pure luck. For it doesn't matter how the horse was selected, a fan's heart and cash will pound around the track with the thoroughbred. He will get the same thrill when he sees his system horse's number come up on the "tote" board and hears the track announcer boom: "The results of the sixth race are now official." And then he's off in a cloud of dreams to the cashiers'

windows with scarcely another thought that his sudden riches have been made possible because man's best friend gave a little extra exertion in the drive down the stretch. After all, even the most rabid baseball fan doesn't invite the team and coaches home for dinner every time the home club wins, so why should the lucky bettor on the way to collect his dividends be concerned further about his new four-footed friend?

Of course, there are hundreds of good horses running today, too, and with so many tracks operating and purses so enriched with that long green stuff that is better for man than even chlorophyll, the owners of these good horses can shop around among tracks and among races until they spot opportunity before it raises its fist to knock. As for old John Q. Public, he always was behind the "tote" board and the new situation is no more confusing to him than it has been down through the years. On the days when he guesses right, he renews his belief that this indeed is the era of the Forgotten Man; when he guesses wrong, which is quite frequently, he consoles himself with the thought that wind, tide and luck just must improve. A bettor in the soup can no more put aside thoughts of raising another bankroll to get even than the average man can resist sticking his finger on fresh paint to see if it really is wet.

For this perpetual flowering of eternal hope is what, in large measure, keeps racing going. And when hope is coupled with the thrill of outguessing owner, trainer and horse, it makes the perfect entry that packs grandstands with customers and snaps the rubber from bankrolls. Through peace and war, depression and prosperity, this brotherhood of "What Looks Good in the Fourth?" carries on.

And each year the "brotherhood" dumps more than three billion dollars into the mutuel machines at the nation's tracks. The tracks, in their modest way, regard themselves as merely the repository of this astronomical sum and at the end of each race return it to the fans in a new kind of "share the wealth" idea. All a fan must do to share in this giant jackpot is to answer the simple question of: "Which horse do you think will show the most improvement in the next few minutes?" And if he lacks forthright courage, he can weasel a little with a "maybe and perhaps" by playing to place or show instead of win. Naturally, the rewards for such feeble courage are not as great as those which go to the man who steps up and calls them as he sees them.

Of course, the tracks, in return for providing a shelter for both man and horse, expect some rewards, too. So as soon as the bell rings and the windows close, the track and state begin a little "he loves me, he loves me not" with the bettor's two dollars.

When the two dollars finally get back to the lucky bettor they bear more scars than a bullet-ridden gangster, but the only ones who seem to care are the professional worriers who gloomily predict that the increased "take" by the state and track will doom racing. The bettor who won gets back his original investment plus a dividend and there are no unhappy faces in the cashiers* lines. As for the fan who blew his bet, he doesn't care how the state, track and other players scramble to divide up his donation. It's only of passing interest for him to know that the states gather in over $250,000,000 each year by slicing it from the two dollars the little man shoves through the mutuel windows.

The little fellow may scream that Lady Luck and Dame Hunch are against him, but he never lifts his voice against percentages. To him, fractions are something to be expressed only in terms of beaten lengths and not in amounts that stuck to the tills when the cashiers began paying off.

The huge betting sum is swelling larger and larger each year as more fans join the quest for sport, sunshine, fresh air and hunches. And if somewhere along the safari something must be sacrificed, the fan will readily give up the sunshine and fresh air.

Racing is in the position of stores during World War II when they posted signs: "Be nice to our clerks. We can always get customers." Tracks today can get customers, but the expansion of racing has spread the crop of horses rather thin. After all, even Kentucky with its famed blue grass still can't turn out horses on the assembly line but must be content to let nature set the pace, while owners and breeders sit around sipping their mint juleps and dreaming of the days when young colts and fillies will be old enough to bid farewell to the playgrounds in the pastures and head postward for gold and glory.

As a result of this phenomenal growth in the past two decades, horses that should be running for purses of $600, $700 or $800 even in these inflationary times now are entered in races for purses of $2,000 and up. Unfortunately for the player, a $2,000 price tag doesn't buy new legs, a larger heart and stouter lungs for a cheap $700 plater any more than a $200 set of clubs and a $50 caddy wagon turn a dub golfer into a par-busting champion.

Besides, since the horses so far have no union to speak for them, they don't know that the $2,000 purse should be an extra incentive for them to give their all for the customers in the grandstand. For there is no pot of gold at the end of the finish line for the horse but only his carrots and oats which he gets win or lose, unless his owner is really mad at him for blowing the race. But owners, like players, always have hope springing eternally in their hearts and can whistle "Tomorrow is another day" as they eat cold beans out of a can.

Racing started out nearly four hundred years ago as the sport of kings, but the little man has long since taken over. In America, the little fellow took over racing when the pari-mutuel machines were attuned to the common man. A Frenchman invented the machine, but the French failed to grasp the full possibilities of how machines could help the breed improve. The first machines came to the United States on a clipper ship, but that may be a coincidence.

For a number of years, the imported machines gathered dust in a warehouse because they sold only $5 tickets. Since even a skilled worker in those days was lucky to earn $15 a week, the little man saw no sense in going out to a track if his whole pay check was good for only two or three hunches. So racing was left to the frock-coat-and striped-pants-boys whose dividends had more stamina than the average pay check. They did business with men called bookmakers who are pickpockets who let you use your own hands.

Then along came a genius who probably was a direct descendant of the man who asked "Why?" when told "The show must go on." He asked why the machines could not sell cheaper tickets and another genius suggested $2 as the unit of trading. The horse now was on his way to some real improvement. (How the pari-mutuel machines determine the pay-off is explained in Appendix E.)

The frock-coat-and-striped-pants boys soon were swallowed up by the little fellow who had no concern about his dress unless he was being fitted for a barrel. The only formal dress requirements retained by the tracks are that, whatever the garment, it must have pockets. But there probably would be no objections to the eccentric fan who wanted to carry his money in his sock.

So far, the horses have not complained about the shift to casual wear, but they must have noted some changes because now the roars and yells that urge them on are not always couched in drawing room language. And instead of a few gently shouting encouragement from grandstand and clubhouse, there are now thousands lined along the rail from where lung power can really sweep the track.

If the striped-pants brigade had any complaints, their protests were drowned out by the din of clanking dollars as proceeds were counted at the end of each day. Society may have lent dignity and respectability to racing, but modern track owners prefer dividends. Since the betting in those days was done through bookmakers who sat on high stools but assuredly did not wear dunce caps, the tracks never knew how much money changed hands. The bookmakers simply paid the track for the privilege of catering both to man and man's good friend—the horse.

Several tracks still maintain an exclusive sanctum for those patrons who cannot only drive up in a chauffeured car but can also drive home the same way no matter in what fickle mood Lady Luck happens to be. Tracks, however, insist that these "bluebloods" also drop their money into the same mutuels, for the track likes its money thoroughly mixed. Nor does the little man object to this country club crowd, for to him it's the same proposition as getting a transfusion at a blood bank. He doesn't shop around for the blood donation of any particular person, and at the track he doesn't worry about whose money the cashier shoves to him through the window.

Racing started out on a slogan of "improve the breed of horses." Today's fan has kept the spirit of the old slogan but changed it to read: "Improve the breed of bankrolls." He is not interested in the social graces or in the manners of either the horses or his fellow players.

Whether the horse actually improves over the years is a question that is immaterial to the little man. He doesn't care how fast the horse runs just as long as its speed is a trifle faster than that of the next horse. This is the only kind of improvement he can understand.

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