Week one on the road. Fitting that it begins at Churchill Downs, my childhood stomping ground. An oversized popcorn and thoroughbreds racing 40 mph around a mile oval were enough to get me excited growing up. Growing up, the races were always run during the day.
Times have changed.
In 2009 Churchill installed a $4M lighting system around the mile racetrack in order to host night racing, and the investment has been, by every imaginable yardstick, worthwhile. On the first night of night racing, June 13th 2009, Churchill Downs ran out of beer (note to self: look for opportunities to invest in events which run out of beer).
Since that fateful night, Churchill has been churning out themed nights at the track with a two-fold billing: horse racing + a good party. The latter being of greater importance to at least 2/3 of the 21,600 on June 14th, which in no way deterred from my enjoyment of the races. Quite the contrary. I'm all for trying anything short of localized nuclear testing if it means getting more people to the track and letting them try out the goods. If a few visitors happen to enjoy the races more than the party, all the better.
As party-going-twenty-somethings mingled with some of the best older horses on the planet last weekend, I tipped my hat to Churchill and simultaneously wondered why they didn't try this decades ago. Louisville -- similar to Lexington (KY), Saratoga (NY), Del Mar (CA), and Hot Springs (AK) -- is one of the few towns in which the racetrack is an integral part of the local identity. Events at the track get noticed. If you bill it, they will come.
In the evening's marquee race, the $550K Stephen Foster Handicap, I utilized the first betting strategy I want to highlight in these pages. Developing your own, preferred betting strategies is akin to a basketball player developing a cross-over dribble: you've got to have it if you want to succeed, and once you've patented the move, you'll likely use it over and over and over again.
From this point forward I will refer to my prized cross-over-dribble betting angles as BALBs (Betting Angles to Live By). I feel so strongly about these strategies, even if you give me solid evidence as to why a particular strategy is likely to fail in a particular instance, I'll probably ignore you. Said another way, if we are a ship at sea and there is an iceberg straight ahead, I'm not changing course. We are using our BALB and plowing through that piece of ice or going down with ship. Iceberg be damned.
Last Saturday night in the Stephen Foster Handicap I utilized one of my most beloved BALBs: do not be afraid of betting on a horse coming off a terrible race.
Betting on horse racing is largely a three-part exercise in determining: 1) is the horse currently in good form and relatively well rested and therefore likely to race well at this time 2) do the race track conditions on this particular day suit the horse and 3) based on the other horses who are racing, is the race likely to unfold in such a way that it will suit the horse's running style (ex: if the horse you like tends to start slow and come from behind, you want there to be a lot of horses who start quickly in the race, making it easier for your horse to come from behind and pass the tiring frontrunners).
There are a plethora of other conditions that can affect a race's outcome, many of which we will discuss later, but most betting decisions revolve around those three considerations.
However, in the same way that Kevin Durant is capable of having an off shooting night amidst an MVP season, a horse who is currently in good form or even at the top of his game is capable of throwing in an inexplicable clunker. If there are 10 races on any given day, at least once, and often times more, a huge favorite will run poorly for no obvious reason. Sometimes horses just don't feel like racing; it's as simple as that.
Meanwhile, you are 100% guaranteed to get better odds, and therefore a higher payout, if you are willing to bet on a horse directly after they have run a terrible race. The betting public will always be more tentative to back a horse who is coming off a recent, poor performance.
Such was the case with Will Take Charge in the Stephen Foster Handicap last Saturday.
Will Take Charge won $1.7M last year and was one of the best dirt horses in the country as a three year-old. His form through the first five months of 2014 has been at a comparable level, and horses are often their best at age four. However, Will Tack Charge's good vibes this year come with a notable exception: he ran an absolutely awful race on the undercard on Derby Day. On that day in the Alysheba Stakes, Will Take Charge was a huge favorite and finished a well beaten sixth, to the dismay of many people who bet on him, some of which were surely in attendance on Saturday night as well.
I tend to bet around $12 per race. I wish I could say I was disciplined gambler who sets a specific budget and sticks to it with rigor, but I'm not. Thankfully, most years I either finish up a little or down a little without need to count or worry about significant losses. And if there is an betting angle I really like, I will bet more than $12 on a race. Such was the case when I bet $12 across the board on Will Take Charge in the Stephen Foster (a $36 wager).
In the Stephen Foster Will Take Charge still didn't quite have his A game. On the far turn I thought he was going to run right by the competition, but his bid fell a little flat in the stretch. Still, because he as coming off a poor performance in his previous race, his odds were higher than they otherwise would have been. My $36 wager returned $46: ten dollars of my profit and my horse didn't even win the race. That is a great outcome.
If only that had been my lone bet. It wasn't. But Churchill put on a great show and hopefully converted a few party goers to horse racing enthusiasts in the process.
If the next 46 weeks are comparable to this night, we are in for some serious fun.
Notes about Churchill Downs and my visit
Year Churchill Downs Opened: 1875
Cost of admission on my visit: $10 ($3 on regular days)
Attendance: 21,600
Cost of domestic beer: $5.25
How I fared wagering: bet four races, lost $32.
How I felt about my wagering: like someone who deserved to lose at least $32. With the exception of betting on Will Take Charge, I just didn't have the goods.
Average age of attendee: late 20s, cue the DJ (this age will not be a recurring theme)
Something you should seek out when visiting the Downs: the two murals by legendary cartoonist, Pierre Bellocq ("Peb") in the Clubhouse which depict every jockey and trainer to win the Derby
Other items of note: this spring Churchill installed a170 ft. x 90 ft. video screen which is 40% bigger than the screen employed by the Dallas Cowboys. The primary benefit is that infield goers can actually see the Derby. A secondary benefit is anything which knocks Jerry Jones down a peg.
Around the track you will find: row houses from the 30s and 40s, the Central Avenue Beer Depot, Papa John's Stadium (home of the University of Louisville Football team)
If Churchill Downs were an old school Nintendo game it would be: Mike Tyson's Pounch-Out. Undeniably classic. Predictable at times (see Bald Bull) and innovative at others (see Mr. Sandman). Capable of knocking you on your ass unexpectedly on Derby weekend (see the Great Tiger) and one of a kind with its mint juelps, Twin Spires, and the Derby (Mike Tyson's biting left hook).
Overall rating of my night at the track (1 to 10): 8.5. Short of a few days at Del Mar, Saratoga, or Keeneland, if you are going to show up at a racetrack on a random night and hope that anyone who tagged along with you would be impressed by the experience, a night like this would be tough to beat.
Monday, June 30, 2014
Getting Started: Background on These Pages
For five weeks every spring, thoroughbred horse racing has a reserved place -- sometimes in the foreground, sometimes on the back pages -- in the nation’s consciousness. Starting with the Kentucky Derby, run every year on the first Saturday in May, and concluding five weeks later with the Belmont, the American populace is at least peripherally aware of horse racing’s rite of spring participation alongside March Madness, the Masters, the NBA playoffs, and the Indy 500.
If a horse wins the Derby and the Preakness and has a chance of joining the eleven 3-year olds who have won the Triple Crown in the last 140 years, the attention is magnified ten-fold going into the Belmont. If different horses win the Derby and the Preakness, attention will wane immediately after the Preakness and drop off a precipitous cliff the moment the Belmont concludes – garnering zero thought from the vast majority of Americans for the next 47 weeks, only to resurface again the following year when mention of Derby parties, mint juleps, and unproven thoroughbreds resurface.
This site will be dedicated to the other 47 weeks.
As someone who grew up in the shadows of the Twin Spires at Churchill Downs, horse racing has always been in my blood. And it has always been a year-around condition.
My dad and I went to Churchill at least once a week during the racing season throughout my childhood. I used to envision myself winning the Kentucky Derby as a jockey with a last-to-first move accompanied by an unrelenting roar from the Churchill Downs' crowd. That daydream shared the spotlight with the equally likely probability that I would win the Masters with regularity and enter the halls of golf immortality. Those were the backyard visions of my youth.
When Churchill Downs shut down for the season there was always a trip to Turfway or Ellis Park with my dad -- Ellis being especially memorable for its video arcade circa 1983 -- to ensure that horse racing was always top of mind. As the years went by I paid less and less attention to the arcades and peripheral attractions and more time studying the racing form.
My dad would allow me to spend a few dollars on shared wagers with him at an early age, and 20+ years later I still remember a cold night at Turfway Park in which I hit 5 of the 6 races in the Pick Six. It's safe to say that cold night, and the correlated wagering success, made a lasting impression.
The legal age to bet is 18, but by the time I turned 16 I had scouted out the tellers at Churchill Downs who wouldn't question my age. It probably helped that I walked up to the betting window and starting spitting out $1 exacta wheels as if I had been playing them for years. In actuality, I had.
For anyone who likes to gamble on sports but isn't accustomed to betting on horse racing, I can promise you it will be the most analytical undertaking of your gambling career. It's like playing in a Fantasy football league that has an auction every week, and you must decide how much to pay for a given player based on the competition, conditions, and cost of that player for that particular week.
At the age of 36, studying the racing form for a great day of racing is the most enjoyably, analytical undertaking of my calendar year. Sifting through each horse's past performances, looking for racing trends or subtle indicators, analyzing the relative value of paying an extra $8 to add another horse to my Pick 3: it's a constantly evolving equation in which you're given in initial set of parameters (odds, track conditions, etc.) and then the parameters change right up until the race is run.
Every so often your analytics allow you to revisit the kid-in-the-candy-store sensation as you walk over to the betting window and collect on a longshot that most everyone else overlooked. That glorious feeling never gets old.
Unfortunately, when a friend asks "where can i go to learn how to bet on horse racing," I don't have a good answer. There are plenty of websites dedicated to established horse players, but very few which offer introductory advice about the intricacies of betting. Meanwhile anyone who has ever been to Churchill Downs for the Derby or to a big day of racing knows that betting lines can rival the misery of the queue at the DMV. Once-a-year attendees largely don't know how to bet and the line can take forever. And for newcomers wagering can be an intimidating affair when you don't know how to say you're desired bet, which inevitably results in frustration for those behind you in line.
At the same time the horse racing industry desperately needs new fans, so we must be do better at converting once-a-year visitors to ongoing fandom. With that important goal in mind, I'm hoping to dedicate a fair amount time to the wagering window, form the most basic wagers to studying the racing form to a few of my preferred wagering strategies, which I'm calling my "betting angles to live by."
Said betting angles will surely lead to frustrations, near misses, and second guessing as these pages evolve. Wagering "what ifs" are as innate to horse racing as the track itself.
Beyond that I hope these pages lead to random places and vantage points, whether that implies contemplating the sport from my condo, from the road, or from the parking lot outside the track. I'm aiming for otherness as opposed to redundancy or calculation. We'll see how I fare in that regard. Thankfully, I won $1400 this spring wagering on Belmont and Derby Day, which I view as license to spend extra gas money for trips to the racetrack and random discovery.
As for audience, this forum is intended for anyone wanting to ask questions about racing & wagering. Anyone interested in horse racing. And most importantly, anyone who loves and appreciates the magnificent thoroughbreds who make the sport possible. If we don't place their health and well being above all else, we've failed before we begin.
For anyone who happens to enjoy these pages, I'm hoping we can meet at the racetrack too. Blogging is great. So is online wagering. It's a convenience I make use of virtually every week. But our sport's product -- and its future -- is at the racetrack. No substitute will ever do.
We've got 47 weeks to figure the rest out. Plenty of time to make mistakes. And learn from those mistakes. Plenty of time to visit our sport in action, whether at The Spa (Saratoga) or The Great Race Place (Santa Anita) or the less heralded tracks that dot our nation's countryside.
For anyone who tags along for the ride, this blog is dedicated to you. Welcome to our 47 weeks.
If a horse wins the Derby and the Preakness and has a chance of joining the eleven 3-year olds who have won the Triple Crown in the last 140 years, the attention is magnified ten-fold going into the Belmont. If different horses win the Derby and the Preakness, attention will wane immediately after the Preakness and drop off a precipitous cliff the moment the Belmont concludes – garnering zero thought from the vast majority of Americans for the next 47 weeks, only to resurface again the following year when mention of Derby parties, mint juleps, and unproven thoroughbreds resurface.
This site will be dedicated to the other 47 weeks.
As someone who grew up in the shadows of the Twin Spires at Churchill Downs, horse racing has always been in my blood. And it has always been a year-around condition.
My dad and I went to Churchill at least once a week during the racing season throughout my childhood. I used to envision myself winning the Kentucky Derby as a jockey with a last-to-first move accompanied by an unrelenting roar from the Churchill Downs' crowd. That daydream shared the spotlight with the equally likely probability that I would win the Masters with regularity and enter the halls of golf immortality. Those were the backyard visions of my youth.
When Churchill Downs shut down for the season there was always a trip to Turfway or Ellis Park with my dad -- Ellis being especially memorable for its video arcade circa 1983 -- to ensure that horse racing was always top of mind. As the years went by I paid less and less attention to the arcades and peripheral attractions and more time studying the racing form.
My dad would allow me to spend a few dollars on shared wagers with him at an early age, and 20+ years later I still remember a cold night at Turfway Park in which I hit 5 of the 6 races in the Pick Six. It's safe to say that cold night, and the correlated wagering success, made a lasting impression.
The legal age to bet is 18, but by the time I turned 16 I had scouted out the tellers at Churchill Downs who wouldn't question my age. It probably helped that I walked up to the betting window and starting spitting out $1 exacta wheels as if I had been playing them for years. In actuality, I had.
For anyone who likes to gamble on sports but isn't accustomed to betting on horse racing, I can promise you it will be the most analytical undertaking of your gambling career. It's like playing in a Fantasy football league that has an auction every week, and you must decide how much to pay for a given player based on the competition, conditions, and cost of that player for that particular week.
At the age of 36, studying the racing form for a great day of racing is the most enjoyably, analytical undertaking of my calendar year. Sifting through each horse's past performances, looking for racing trends or subtle indicators, analyzing the relative value of paying an extra $8 to add another horse to my Pick 3: it's a constantly evolving equation in which you're given in initial set of parameters (odds, track conditions, etc.) and then the parameters change right up until the race is run.
Every so often your analytics allow you to revisit the kid-in-the-candy-store sensation as you walk over to the betting window and collect on a longshot that most everyone else overlooked. That glorious feeling never gets old.
Unfortunately, when a friend asks "where can i go to learn how to bet on horse racing," I don't have a good answer. There are plenty of websites dedicated to established horse players, but very few which offer introductory advice about the intricacies of betting. Meanwhile anyone who has ever been to Churchill Downs for the Derby or to a big day of racing knows that betting lines can rival the misery of the queue at the DMV. Once-a-year attendees largely don't know how to bet and the line can take forever. And for newcomers wagering can be an intimidating affair when you don't know how to say you're desired bet, which inevitably results in frustration for those behind you in line.
At the same time the horse racing industry desperately needs new fans, so we must be do better at converting once-a-year visitors to ongoing fandom. With that important goal in mind, I'm hoping to dedicate a fair amount time to the wagering window, form the most basic wagers to studying the racing form to a few of my preferred wagering strategies, which I'm calling my "betting angles to live by."
Said betting angles will surely lead to frustrations, near misses, and second guessing as these pages evolve. Wagering "what ifs" are as innate to horse racing as the track itself.
Beyond that I hope these pages lead to random places and vantage points, whether that implies contemplating the sport from my condo, from the road, or from the parking lot outside the track. I'm aiming for otherness as opposed to redundancy or calculation. We'll see how I fare in that regard. Thankfully, I won $1400 this spring wagering on Belmont and Derby Day, which I view as license to spend extra gas money for trips to the racetrack and random discovery.
As for audience, this forum is intended for anyone wanting to ask questions about racing & wagering. Anyone interested in horse racing. And most importantly, anyone who loves and appreciates the magnificent thoroughbreds who make the sport possible. If we don't place their health and well being above all else, we've failed before we begin.
For anyone who happens to enjoy these pages, I'm hoping we can meet at the racetrack too. Blogging is great. So is online wagering. It's a convenience I make use of virtually every week. But our sport's product -- and its future -- is at the racetrack. No substitute will ever do.
We've got 47 weeks to figure the rest out. Plenty of time to make mistakes. And learn from those mistakes. Plenty of time to visit our sport in action, whether at The Spa (Saratoga) or The Great Race Place (Santa Anita) or the less heralded tracks that dot our nation's countryside.
For anyone who tags along for the ride, this blog is dedicated to you. Welcome to our 47 weeks.
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