Pittsburgh Phil

Pittsburgh Phil/George Smith

If everyone thought racing was on the up-and-up, what fun would that be?

The X Universe is alive this morning with good observations on betting patterns and outcomes. An intelligence agency would call it "lively chatter." Thoughts of conspiracy and shenanigans follow like a sunrise.  A catchy name has even emerged: 'The Fair Hill Five.' The name mimics the great British WW II spies in the U.K. that were double agents for the Soviets: 'The Cambridge Five.' I love it.

There is a difference. The Fair Hills five is not five people, but rather 5 horses that ran at two tracks on Sunday—Monmouth and Saratoga—that won from two obscure trainers, sporting workouts at Fair Hill Training Center in Maryland.

The training center is a combination of a spa, retreat, workout center, and rehab facility for thoroughbreds. It boasts of a lot of horses who have passed through it and gone on to do great things, or are coming from great things and want to get back there.

Fair Hill is not unique. There is Payson Training Center in Virginia; a similar facility devoted to getting a horse in top shape. Workouts are published in the Racing Form when they come from these facilities: "Fai"; "Pay" are the initials. Sort of like airports. There are other training centers as well. 

What has got the X people jumping is two horses, trained by Ernesto Ochoa, who won races at Saratoga on Sunday, with ease, sporting fairly lousy looking past performance form and coming off significant layoffs, but showing workouts at Fai.

In Saratoga's 4th race, Classic Rock went wire-to-wire after last racing November 7, 2025 at Churchill Downs. Classic Rock won the $35,000 maiden claiming race by nearly 9 lengths with Ricardo Santana riding, paying $18.68 to win for $2.

According to some people on X, the workouts at Fai are reported on an "honor system." That would imply there are no Daily Racing Form, or track clockers at this facility timing morning workouts. Thus, a workout might be reported, but the timing concocted; or, there can even be a workout that goes unreported. 

There was a legendary gambler, horseplayer, Pittsburgh Phil, who was really George Smith, who made over a $1 million betting on races in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Phil was the first human Racing Form, acquiring statistics on horse that no one was paying attention to. In horse racing, like the stock market—both played at by the same individuals—information is king. Google tells us:

"Pittsburgh Phil," born George Ellsworth Smith (1862–1905), was America's greatest and most methodical Thoroughbred horse racing handicapper. He won an estimated $1.7 million (a massive fortune at the turn of the 20th century) by treating the racetrack like a precise business rather than a game of chance. 

He was the first Quant of racing. He compiled all the information, and more, that is now available in a past performance. He made his own past performances, when no one else did.

In Saratoga's 7th race, also a maiden claiming, this one for $85,000, M Bs Melanie Cares also went wire-to-wire with Ricardo aboard, paying a plump $27.70 for $2 to win. They last raced January 4, 2026 at Gulfstream Park.

At Monmouth's 3rd race on Sunday, in a maiden claimer for $25,000, The Great Amira took the lead after the ¼ pole and won by 9 lengths with C.D. Lugo aboard, and trained by Angel Quiroz, a trainer with few starts and only $70,645 in earnings for the year. The Great Amira was coming off a layoff, and last race February 8, 2026 at Gulfstream Park, paying a very nice $37.20 for $2.

The 4th race at Monmouth, an open claimer, thus not a maiden race, was for a $16,000 claiming price. Tepeyac took the lead in the stretch after moving up through the field, and won by 1½ lengths with C.D. Lugo, also trained by Angel Quiroz, with only 20 starts this year. Another lightweight. Tepeyac was coming off a bit of a layoff, not having raced since April 5, 2026 at Gulfstream Park.

There is such a thing as "Rolling Daily Doubles", meaning starting with the 1st race and 2nd race; there is also a Double that starts with the 2nd race and links the 3rd race, and so on.

Consider the second daily double on the card at Monmouth, consisting of the 2nd and 3rd races won by horses that paid $9.20 and The Great Amira's $37.20, and you've got a $101.00 Daily Double payout for $2. 

Double pools are separate from win pools, but should reflect either the high or low payouts of the horses in the double, paying $101.00. A $9.20 horse, and a $37.20 horse linked in a Double paying $101.00 sounds about right. The trainer for the winner of the 2nd race was Antonio Arriga and the rider was Ruben Silvera. Thus, the winning trainer of the 2nd and 3rd races was not the same.

The rolling daily Double for the 3rd and 4th races, comprised of the Fair Hill trained winners, paid $25.60 for horses that paid $37.20 and $$9.60 to win, almost identical in payouts for the previous Double, that included The Great Amira at $37.20, and Johnny Hockey in the 2nd at $9.20 for a Daily Double that was a not eyebrow raising $101.00.

Thus, the 3rh and 4th races rolling double paying $25.60 is less than the payout for one of its legs. This is unusual, and speaks to a Double pool skewed to the two winners. You can get the justifiable feeling that someone has put "one over" on the public. It is not impossible.

I can't find my Pittsburgh Phil book right now. It is filled with his axioms, one of which was maybe the best one: never play a horse (especially a favorite) that is trying something for the first time, a distance, carrying weight, or a change of surface, or condition of that surface..

The voluble Andy Serling on the Fox racing broadcasts once attributed this to Harvey Pack, a legendary racetrack bettor and personality. Well, if Harvey said it, and he probably did, he got from Pittsburgh Phil, although not personally, since Phil lived from 1862-1905.

(After Serling quoted Harvey as coming up with that bit of advice, I X'd Andy and told him Pittsburgh Phil said it first. No response from Andy. None expected.)

I like to think that if Pittsburgh Phil were around today, he would know if something was up with Fair Hill trained runners and their reported or unreported works.  In his era, there would have been no rolling Doubles, only Win, Place and Show bets and maybe one Double at the start of the card.

$18.68 and $27.70 win scores are nothing to sneeze at. Phil would have been smiling.

http://onofframp.blogspot.com

Sharp Force

"Sharp Force." The book? Not so sharp.

I took a chance of reading this book because of he Scarpetta miniseries on Prime Video starring Nicole Kidman and Jamie Lee Curtis.

Initially, I wouldn't recommend the series to anyone, but I've since revisited it after reading "Sharp Force" and find it worth the bother if you can get past Jamie Lee Curtis and her wrinkled breasts trying to escape from the hardly age appropriate clothing she's wearing. Kay, played by Nicole Kidman, is her sister, and has basically retorted that Dorothy is just plain "cock-happy." Oh boy.

I just finished a book and was looking for another to read. I got the book in hardcover, which I prefer, for around $14 on Amazon. There is one thing about a best-selling author, even hardcover books are cheap.

The Scarpetta miniseries helps in identifying the characters in "Sharp Force". The miniseries rocks back and forth though time, necessitating another actress to played the younger Kay Scarpetta, the Chief Medical Officer of Virginia

There is a long-running BBC series called Silent Witness that's been playing out for decades with a female forensic pathologist headlining the cast. Lately that's been Emilia Fox, playing Nikki Alexander as the pathologist who we see doing the cadaver cutting, extracting and weighing of organs as they are placed dripping on a handy scale.

:Silent Witness: is a great series. The author of the Scarpetta series of book is Patricia Cornwell, who worked in a chief medical officer's office in Virginia. She wasn't a medical person, but was certainly in the room when bodies were examined.

"Sharp Force" is basically a straight narrative starting on Christmas Day in what can be described as a day in the life of Kay Scarpetta. It's easy to follow, and there are just enough characters that you don't get confused as to who's who.

The arc of the story will challenge your sense of reality when the "Slasher" is following their victims with a drone that produces a hologram that goes through walls and doors to torment the victim.

This is not a science fiction book. It is a crime mystery will all the bells and whistles of what we read about every day: AI brought to life.

Kay Scarpetta's niece is Lucy, Dorothy's child who lives with Kay and her husband because, well, Dorothy is a "shit mother." Kay and her husband have no children.

Lucy is a lesbian who is a cyber special agent and technical expert for the F.B.I., and is mourning the loss of her wife, who she has replaced with an AI agent avatar, Janet, who is Wi-Fi'd into seeing and hearing everything Kay and her husband do, in the house or even in their Tesla car, and who they consult online for background checks.

Lucy can fly the Bureau's helicopter and chases away the news drones from the pain-in-ass news personality, Dana Diletti, who has also been personally threatened by a hologram, that has flooded the sky over the murder scene, a psychiatric hospital on the fictional Virginia Mercy Island with great views of the Potomac, near Ronald Regan International Airport.

Lucy's AI avatar, Janet, is so realistic that she talks and moves as if she's in the same room, listening to the background conversations. Janet has a soothing British accent in the miniseries. Benton, who is a Secret Service profiler, even asks Janet to complete an assignment to get the background information on an individual. Result? "Thank you Janet. Please download your complete report to me and Lucy." I kid you not.

The book is 384, and it's not until Page 246 that Kay and her husband reach to scene of the murdered psychiatrist, Georgine Duvall, who lives in a house on the fictional Mercy island that also has a psychiatric hospital on the grounds.

Georgine is known to Kay, and it turns out was Lucy psychiatrist when Lucy was having trouble in there early college years adapting. In addition to that connection, the house where Georgine was killed is one in which Kay and her husband Benton were looking at to buy when Kay was moving back to Alexandria, Virginia.

Along with Georgine, the Slasher's victim is another person who was in the house at the time and who was nearly killed by the Slasher, Zain Willard, a young man who was staying with the psychiatrist. No sexual relation there apparently, but Zain in the nephew of Senator Calvin Willard, an expected nominee for president.

Pete Marino is first on the scene with the police and the F.B.I. Marino has seen the hologram float outside the victim's house. It is real, and not a product of the imagination.

Why Benson is on the scene is not really understood. He's given Kay a ride from home because she left her car at the morgue the night before and got a ride with her investigator, Pete Marino, a former homicide detective who is married to Kay's sister Dorothy. This is not a soap opera, but a group of people who have a lot of history together. Pete is Kay's investigator on the job.

Patricia Corrnwell must be a vastly popular best-selling author, because I got the hardcover edition on Amazon, new, for $14. Any more, and I wouldn't have bothered. I like a hardcover book, but I think I'm going to drop this one off at the train station when I'm done. It should go before I even get on the train.

Kay's husband is allowed onto the murder scene despite being a Secret Service officer with no apparent reason to be part of the investigation other than to give Kay a ride to Mercy Island because she has been driven home the night before because of raging snow storm by her chief investigator, Pete Marino, a former homicide detective, who undoubtedly has the hots for Kay and is Lucy's step-dad, Marino  is coincidently married to Kay's somewhat hysterical and argumentative sister, Dorothy. No, this is not a soap opera either.

A Senator's nephew was staying in the house on the grounds of the psychiatric hospital with the murdered psychiatrist, making him a possible suspect, except for his nearly fatal wounds suffered from the Slasher. There was nothing sexual going on between him and the psychiatrist. 

His uncle is a strong candidate to gain the nomination for president, and maybe this is why the Secret Service can be there. Benson has seen Zain at White House events, even demonstrating his robot. It's nice he gave his wife a ride and acts as an investigator, with uncertain authority to be there.

All those pages to get to the principal crime scene are taken up by Doc Scarpetta investigating a dead guy who went fishing off a pier at night in December and landed in the drink and died, who may, or may not be related to the bigger picture coming up. Oh, the dead guy fired two shots at something. 

I only came to choose this book because I was just finishing a book and needed another to read when I came across the Prime Video miniseries of Kay Scarpetta, via Amazon. I took in the first episode and stayed away from the rest of them because I couldn't stand watching Jamie Lee Curtis play Kay's sister, who always seems to be theatrically overwrought over something. As portrayed, Nicole Kidman as Kay Scarpetta and Jamie Lee as Dorothy, could in no way have been sisters who have reached adulthood together. Kay would have found a away to kill Dorothy and fudge the cause of death and gotten away with it before either of them was 23.

At another point, as the red herrings get introduced, Benson actually starts to interrogate the robot that the Senator's nephew has in the closet in the psychiatrist's house. Zain is a robotics expert, who has demonstrated his robot dog at the White House. Benson has seen Zain and his robot before. During the "interrogation" the robot's batteries start to run low and he goes to sleep mode. Again, I kid you not. He does prove useful though, if you can imagine that.

I will not introduce any spoilers here for you to avoid. I will tell you the ending is idiotic and is brought to a head by an escaped orangutan who glows on UV light in a greenhouse where legal pot is being grown. Again, I kid you not.

This denouement occurs at the end of the penultimate chapter. The last chapter is a week after the narrative of what has truly been a busy day. for all involved.

http://www,onofframp.blogspot.com

Carol Double-D II

Jeanette Etheredge

I've experienced yet another example of living on a Möbius Strip. We are all connected.

Just a few days after writing about how my posting of December 1, 2015 on the passing of Carol Doda has recently surged in views—for unknown reasons—Ms. Doda's name appears in the  New York Times August 3, 2026, print edition obituary by Penelope Green, of Jeanette Etheredge, 85, a legendary owner of a North Beach San Francisco bar. 

Ms. Doda was San Francisco's most famous stripper, and maybe the most famous stripper of her time. Ms. Doda's names appears in Ms. Etheredge's obituary as an example of the eclectic, celebrity crowd of A-Listers, B-Listers, No-Listers, and likely ex-cons, who favored going to Tosca. It was the West Coast Elaine's, the famous bar, eatery on Second Avenue in New York that was hosted by the ineffable saloon keeper, Elaine Kaufman. 

Elaine's is no longer there since Elaine passed away, but Tosca remains, and now serves food. With Ms. Etheredge, there was no food served.

Ms. Doda's names is dropped: "Carol Doda—once San Francisco's most famous stripper—who in the 1960s danced at the nearby Condor Club in a Rudy Gernreich monoskin, showcasing her newly enhanced breasts, was a regular."

Rudy Gernreich was a famous fashion designer in the 1960s who designed swimwear, amongst other articles of clothing for women. He was famous for designing the topless bathing suit. (It is California.)

But Penelope Green's obit is about Ms. Etheredge, and what a backstory. It almost reads like a spy novel.

Jeanette "was born in China. Her grandparents were Armenian refugees who fled the Ottoman genocide of 1915, settling first in Manchuria, and then in Qingdao on China's eastern coast, but their community was Russian—Jeanette's first language.

"During WW II, the family was interned in a Japanese prison camp in northern China. When is was liberated by American troops, they returned home, only to be exiled again after the Communist Revolution in 1949, when they fled China and spent a year at a refuge camp in the Philippines. In 1950, when Jeanette was 9, they immigrated to San Francisco." You don't have to own a bar to be able to tell stories.

Jeanette was famous for only remembering customers' first names. Like the fictional Boston bar Cheers, everybody knew your name.

I was only in San Francisco once, in1971, when I could ride the streetcars for 25¢, and the subway BART, Bay Area Rapid Transit, was still on the drawing boards. I never got to North Beach.

The Condor Club, mentioned as where Ms. Doda danced, was the scene of her grand entrance being on a piano lowered from the ceiling. The Club, and the piano continued to be famous for a most unusual death.

Read on, McDuff. It's California.

http://onofframp.blogspot.com

The Hundred Grander

I'm an old guy with a long memory, and for some reason I remember the Horsemen's strike at Aqueduct in 1967 when the Horsemen's Benevolent Protective Agency (HBPA) went on strike and refused to enter horses for Aqueduct's races for 4 days, April 4-9, 1967. I wasn't even remotely interested in horse racing then. 

This was during the Mayor John V. Lindsay administration, and was yet another strike that occurred under the boy/man from Yale. There would be so many strikes during his administration, which ran for an improbable 8 years, that the tabloid nickname for the city was STRIKE CITY.

So, in addition to teachers, transit workers, police, firemen, and sanitation workers, the horses, under the guidance of their trainers, refused to be entered for races, thereby shutting the track down.

So what you might ask. Who cares if racing takes a siesta for a few days? Turns out it was the New York State's Department of Taxation. I kid you not.

No races, no horses claimed. No horses claimed meant no transfer of ownership, and no sales tax that went along with claiming a horse. You're kidding? No.

Mayor Lindsay started a city income tax. He invoked a tax for meals under $1.00 (there was such a thing in the '60s) and made a sales tax apply for what was once a sales tax free hot dog. The tabloids,  the New York Daily News and The New York Post promptly called the mayor's meal tax, "The Hot Dog Tax."

That I remember, the trainers Bobby Frankel, and Buddy Jacobson were quite vocal during the strike. After the strike, it seemed Frankel disappeared from New York racing and took up training in California. Shutting down Aqueduct had consequences.

Racing in that era was heavy with claiming races. Of course there were allowance races, maiden special weight races and stake races, but the daily card held several claiming races. And there was active trading activity in claiming horses.

When I started handicapping in the latter part of the 1960s, an angle always was if was a horse moving up or down the claiming price? What did it mean? It's still an angle, but with all the races in which there are no claims to be made, there is less need to have to consider fluctuating claiming values.

I once was talking to the NYRA racing secretary, asking how did he come to create the races that were proposed in the condition book? The condition book covers a two week span of dates indicating the races that the racing secretary is proposing to be filled. Stake races are already scheduled and have their own set of eligibility criteria, nominating fees and entry fees.

These are the other races on the card, and they can be quite varied as to quality and competitiveness amongst the entrants.

Does the racing secretary propose allowance races for state-breds who have never won a race other than their maiden? A non-state bred race? A second level allowance for horses who have never won two races other than their maiden; maybe non-winners of two lifetime starts; perhaps three starts if toward the end of the year; a more complicated optional claimer with several provisos for eligibility; starter allowances for horses who have started at a maximum or minimum claiming price level. There are even more possibilities. How is the racing secretary seeing into the future as to who might be interested in entering under his proposed conditions in the Condition Book?

At any one time there are hundred of horses stabled on the grounds. Every day they gallop out for exercise. A certain percentage are given workouts of varying distances and intensity. The workout horses signal a trainers intent to getting a horse in shape to race.

The racing secretary makes note of all the remaining eligibility conditions of the horses working out, and then creates a proposed race that might see a reasonable number of these horses be entered by their trainers. Fill out the future card.

On Saturday's Saratoga card, the third race was for four-year olds and up for a claiming price of $100,00. This is an astonishingly high claiming price, and one in which horses with winning records will be attracted to enter, and if claimed, the owner will unload/sell the horse for $100,000 to whomever gets the claim.

There is a claiming box that before a race trainers can put in a claiming slip signaling their intention to claim/buy the horse for their owner. There can be no slips, or several slips for the same horse. When there are several claiming interests there is a "shake" that occurs after the race.

The "shake" is numbered pills, or cubes that are poured into a container and shaken. Each claimant is assigned a number for their claim. If the pill that tumbles out matches the number they were assigned, then they "won the shake" and get to buy the horse. 

The ownership trade occurs right on the track. A horse that is successfully claimed is led off to their new barn, but only is the veterinarian finds no reason to "void" the claim.

And there's the new rub. It used to be that no matter what condition the horse was in after the race, lame, even dead I think, if you won the claim you owned the horse. A tough game.

Not so anymore. The claimant is protected by the vet's decision that the horse is sound and can be awarded to its new owner. Sort of like a warranty.

But a claim can be voided for a variety of reasons with regard to the horse's soundness. In that case, new ownership does not take place and the horse is placed on the "vet list."

This is somewhat like the N.F.L.'s concussion protocols. A player has to be medically cleared to get back in the game, right away, or down the road.

A horse on the vet list has to complete a workout supervised by the vet who again evaluates the horse for soundness. If cleared, the original owners can enter the horse wherever they want. The horse might be claimed again, and the process repeats, or the owners don't put the horse in an unrestricted claiming race, and hold onto the horse. Or, they retire the horse from racing. 

An unrestricted $100,000 claiming race is rare. It means any horse entered is exposed to being claimed by someone else. And guess what, you claim the horse, you pay sales tax. It's as if you just bought a $100,000 car with four legs.

There were 5 horses entered in this $100,000 claiming race for a generous $125,000 purse; three were claimed; two claims were voided, including the claim on the winner, Tuscan Sky, who won by a head.

Tuscan Sky is a 5-year-old gelding who has a 14-4 record, with $329,115 in earnings. Their high water mark was winning the 2024 Pegasus Stakes at Monmouth. They are from the Mike Repole Stable, trained by Todd Pletcher. These are top connections.

A gelding has no value in the stud market, so whomever claimed the horse was intent on racing them, at least until the vet, on post-race examination, voided the claim. 

Every race run is summarized by a "chart" showing how the entrants ran the race; what position they were in at certain poles of the race, who was riding, the odds, and an index number to their last race. In addition to this information, there is a narrative describing how the race was run, what happened in the running.

There is nothing in the chart that indicated Tuscan Sun suffered any injury. But that doesn't mean they didn't. Something is out of place that warranted a placing on the vet list. But that something is not described.

If Tuscan Sky runs again, the past performance will indicate that there was a claim, '-cv', claim voided, but you're not going to know why there was a void, and what did they recover from? Some information, but not all. I have no information how voided claim horses do if they get back to racing.

In addition to Tuscan Sun being claimed, and voided, Dreamlike was also claimed and voided. Dreamlike, trained by Linda Rice for Ronald P. Stewart, finished third, beaten by a head and a neck in the mile dirt race, finishing nearly 12 lengths ahead of the 4th place horse. Nothing in the chart tells of any trouble.

Dreamlike, is a 6-year-old, also a gelding, with over $708 475 in earnings; multiple stakes placed, with a 25-3-10-7 record. This is a so-called war horse, expected to compete at high levels with generous purses offered. 

The third horse claimed—and at this point we're into outlier territory for a rich claiming race with three horses claimed—Gewurztraminer is a 5-year-old gelding, trained by Kinnon LaRose, who just took over the Tom Amoss operation. The horse finished 4th, beaten by over 12 lengths. Gewurztraminer is another war horse with 34 starts, $470,321 in earnings and a 10-9-0 record. They are a solid allowance, starter allowance, optional claimer-type horse. They were claimed by WinStar Farm, William Walden trainer; top connections. Not placed on the vet list. Obviously, Gewurztraminer is expected to keep running.

If anyone remembers the Seabiscuit movie, they will remember that a "Hundred Grander" was the top stakes race amount of the era. The famous Seabiscuit-War admiral match race was for only a $15,000 purse.

Now we have a $100,00 claiming race with a $125,000 purse. And don't forget the sales tax.

http:://www.onofframp.blogspot.com

Blogspot Stats

I've been using blogspot to create blog posting since 2009. I marvel that it's free, and that it is still around, meaning I'm hardly the only one using it. There must be millions of users.

My wife pretty much laughs at my diligence in writing something as often as I do. She tells me, "who reads it?" She doesn't, and my two adult daughters only occasionally might read something I've written if I send them a link. And even then, their attention might stray elsewhere.

I tell my wife, there are people who read what I write. I don't get many comments, but I really don't expect any. If you're familiar with the application you know blogspot, offered by Google, will display a separate page  count of views to the right of your recent entries.

I marvel that everything I've written since 2009 is still available online. There are search capabilities which I sometimes use myself to take me to something I'm trying to remember. Annually, I take advantage of a printing service that scans a body of the postings and creates a hardcover book, with vellum pages. I have a stack of these annual books.

It's nice to see the count go up for a few days. It at least tells me someone has viewed what I wrote. They might have even read the whole thing. Over time, the older postings recede into the background and a view count is not readily available there. That's fine.

There is a function in blogspot that tells you the Stats for recent activity. Lately I've been viewing this feature regularly, because in addition to telling me the activity of the recent posting, it will tell me surges of views for what can turn out to be older—and sometimes much older—postings.

I was struck one day to see that a posting I made about the racetrack personality, Harvey Pack, was surging. I made the posting on July 9, 2021 when Harvey passed away. I basically took exception to the NYT for ignoring his passing, thus the title, Where Have All the Characters Gone? But the famous obituary writer Robert McG. Thomas Jr. is no longer with us, so Harvey didn't get the tribute obit I thought he deserved.

In my posting, I mentioned that the New York Racing Association, NYRA, should name a race after him. Well, in 2026 they did, and that I assume is what created the spike in views. People who didn't know who Harvey was, wanted to know more about him, and my posting came up in search engines. I'm chuffed.

Right now, the view count is 567, so as an answer to my wife, there are lots of people who read my postings.

But so far, my all-time astonishment is the 3,337 views I've recorded for a posting made on October 19, 2010. That's nearly 16 years ago, and it's still getting hits. It should be a song, and I should be getting royalties. If only.

Graphs are part of the features of blogspot. The historical one for this posting, about a famous murder trial in Florida, in the 1960s, in which the defendants were acquitted, —the Candace Mossler trial—shows a steady climb after maybe 5 years in cyberspace.

The count seems to take off and gain traction. There is even a feature that shows a  daily hit rate. No one day exceeded 54 views. Something is driving the interest, maybe a tabloid-type TV journalism feature about the trail. I do not know.

The two defendants are pictured above, nephew and aunt lovers who were accused of bumping off Candace's wealthy husband,  Jacques, heir to the Mossler Safe fortune. They were acquitted, seen smiling at each other in a car after the trial.

Candace Mossler passed away in 1976, and is perhaps astonishingly buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Her nephew-lover passed away in 2010, and it was his obituary that prompted the blog posting afterward.

It is possible there are other archival postings that have garnered outsized numbers, but are not getting current hits. I'm not looking for them.

One more archival posting has been getting hits, Double-D Doda, is a posting I made on December 1, 2015 on the news of Ms. Doda's passing. It has recorded 397 views. Carol Doda was a topless pole dancer who was greatly enhanced in her upper reaches. You can guess where.

This revelation made me look back at the posting. There was a comment from Stephen Miller that I completely forgot about. Mr. Miller used to be an obituary writer for the Wall Street Journal, and is featured in Marilyn Johnson's book The Dead Beat. I met Stephen at an event in perhaps 2009.

It's nagging at me and I can't seem to find where I think I once again made reference to a couple at a Christmas party whose venue was held in an old Pennsylvania Railroad car parked on a low-numbered track in Penn Station, where there would be live cantenary wires overhead for Amtrak and Jersey Transit trains. Lots of voltage going through there. 

As can happen at a Christmas party that serves booze, a couple wanted to get better acquainted with each other, and rather than get a room, they climbed outside to the top of the railroad car.  Two bodies, no doubt one getting on top of the other, left no room for clearance to avoid touching the live wires overhead. Both were fried.

I don't get many comments to any posting, and that hardly discourages me. But looking back at Double-D Doda I read Stephen Miller's rather long comment.

In my posting I made reference to an incident at a strip club that Carole worked that involved the club's assistant manager getting amorous after hours with one of another club's  performers on top of a piano, that for some gimmick feature of the club, could be hydraulically lifted, or lowered, from the ceiling.

As with anything, there can be unintended consequences, and this one took the form of the assistant manager's foot hitting the lift switch and levitating the piano with the oblivious two love-makers on top, inching ever closer to the ceiling.

Again, two bodies in the throes of love-making did not allow for enough clearance when the piano kept going up, resulting in squashing the assistant manger who was on top, killing him.   The hysterical stripper was not found until the next morning, screaming, with no memory of getting on top of the piano, but certainly being dragged into sobriety when her late-night date was crushed to death. She was basically physically unharmed, but certainly may have started to think about her choices in life. Maybe.

I gleaned the story from an obituary of Carol Doda written in a British newspaper. Stephen Miller provided more details on the "stairway to heaven" couple:

"The dead assistant manager was James 'Jimmy the Beard' Ferrozzo. Ferrozzo, a well-known figure on the North Beach nude night-spot strip, was found partly draped over his naked, screaming girlfriend, Teresa Hill, 23, when the Condor club in the North Beach area was opened at 7 a.m. Wednesday by a janitor. 

"Hill, a nude dancer at another establishment, was not freed until about 10 a.m. Wednesday, police said, because the motor running the lift had apparently burned out.

"The dead man's body apparently provided 2 or 3 inches of space that kept Hill from being crushed, police said. Hill was briefly treated at Mission Emergency Hospital where attending physician Paul Auerbach said she suffered only bruises.

"'She was so intoxicated she doesn't even remember getting on the piano,' said detective Whitey Gunther. 'She just remembers waking up and being pinned on the piano.' Ferrozzo got his nickname from the bushy beard he favored. Hill said she dated him since her arrival in San Francisco from Seattle two weeks ago."

The piano was a gutted Steinway used as a prop that descended from the ceiling, allowing Carol, Double-D Doda, to make a splashy entrance.

I wonder how the ICD-10 coding went for the cause of death. Compressed by machinery? Workplace accident?

Death during coitus in a topless bar will certainly make a newspaper story, in this case Page 1.

James "Jimmy the Beard" Ferrozzo died on November 23, 1983, at the age of 40 in a bizarre accident at the Condor Club in San Francisco, California. He was an assistant manager and bouncer at the famous North Beach topless bar. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

The Incident

Date: November 23, 1983
Location: The Condor Club, 560 Broadway, San Francisco, CA
Cause of Death: Asphyxiation and crushing injuries after being pinned against the ceiling [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Event Details

Ferrozzo and his 23-year-old girlfriend, dancer Theresa Hill, were on top of the club's signature hydraulic elevator piano after hours.
Investigators concluded that the couple accidentally triggered the lift switch, causing the piano to rise slowly toward the ceiling.
Ferrozzo took the brunt of the crushing force against the ceiling beams, which tragically killed him while shielding Hill, who survived with injuries.
The medical examiner officially ruled the death accidental. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

If you are looking for specific genealogical records or a full newspaper print of James Ferrozzo's formal obituary notice, let me know the exact archive or year you want to target so I can assist further.

The formal death notices and local news archives from November 1983 provide additional background on James Ferrozzo's life prior to his career in San Francisco:

• Athletic Background: Newspaper archives show Ferrozzo was originally from Minnesota, where he was a standout football star at Johnson High School in St. Paul. [1]
• NFL Ambitions: According to family members interviewed after his death, he was a talented athlete who once tried out for the Minnesota Vikings. [1]

And lest you think West Coast news doesn't reach the East Coast, consider that the Club Condor was still open in 2025 when its manager was killed by two former employees. The New York Post carried the story extensively, and described the manger as Mark...

"Calcagni, a fixture in San Francisco’s adult entertainment scene, managed both the Condor Club and Vanity San Francisco, another nearby jiggle joint, according to police and colleagues." 

[You gotta love the Post's use of alliteration.]

The club claims to be the first topless bar in the United States, opening in 1964. There should be a landmark plaque somewhere.

As for the view count on Double-D Doda, it's been inching up to 398 since 2015. It's not 3,337, like Come on Down, because it tells us sex sells, but sex and murder sell better.

The lesson here? You should always read obituaries. And get a room.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com

NYRA

I have a new punching bag. Any long-term reader of these postings knows I sometimes find enough of my own bile to confront Maureen Dowd's bile, who is most snarky about Donald Trump and Republicans. If they didn't exist Maureen might need her own new punching bags.

I've realized that lately my dislike of NYRA, The New York Racing Association, which has been festering for years, comes to a roaring boil when we get to the Saratoga meetings. And not because I find myself paying an arm and a leg to go there and get a seat. No plans to go there in the near future.  I'm already spending less.

My longtime racing companion Johnny M. passed away on Belmont Day in 2025 at 82. I had Sovereignty, and he would have too. I miss him a lot.

We went there every year for over 20 years, initially buying three reserved seats for the two of us—which years ago weren't very much—because the seats are too close together. We kept the third seat between us for binoculars and the Racing Forms.

I don't remember the year, but at some point, perhaps under Christopher Kay's leadership, (eventually disgraced and fired for having NYRA stable staff  be his landscapers for his home.), prime location picnic tables became reserved seats, and the prices went up sky high. The joke became NYRA was looking to plant more trees to create shade for tables they can charge more for. I reduced the seat purchase to two, and suffered with the cramped discomfort.

The size of those seats remains, but the prices are now insane, $25 and up for one seat. Okay, $7 General Admission included, but really?

You can see from the telecasts that the seats are mostly empty. If NYRA wants to make the place more appealing to sit in—and likely just as expensive—then they should rip out the old seats, create more room for patrons that are not naked anorexic shells of themselves. Cup holders, anyone?

Eventually, Johnny M. and myself migrated to buying a table for two in the Fourstardave sports bar. More room to sit in, a table to write on, and food and beverage service if we wanted it. A win.

I don't remember what we paid in 2024, our last year at Saratoga, for the two Fourstardave seats, but I'm seeing now they go for over $30 a piece, and hit $40+ depending on the day of the week. Insane. Does anyone have any money left to bet with?

There's a $135 buffet! in the Easy Goer room (for one), the most unappealing venue to eat in. Only Joey Chestnut of Nathan's Hot Dog eating fame could make a $135 buffet pay on 9-race card and not get sick. There are all sorts of Tiffany prices everywhere. You'd think NYRA was selling tickets to New York Yankee games behind home plate. or horseshoe seats at the Metropolitan Opera..

From telecasts, it seems the crowd that does comes in, snags a free picnic table, or piles onto the apron to watch the races. Ground level is the worst possible way to see the races, but for $7 you can be a railbird.

Everyone is wringing their hands and bemoaning the decline of racing interest. The prices aren't what contributes to it, but hey do make it cost prohibitive to go to the races and view them in a little style—like having a seat that you can sit in all day. What a concept. If I buy an expensive ticket to a Broadway show I get a seat, not something separately priced.

There's nothing wrong with the racing "product" provided by NYRA. Purses are the best compared to any track. DelMar makes a big deal of being the Saratoga of the West Coast. The stands and building look great, but the purses pale to New York.

Today's NYRA Saratoga card is 9 races, with a $200,000 Black Type feature and other races for purses that total $803,000. Delmar, is only presenting 8 races whose purses total $414,000. No Black Type features.

NYRA has a first class online betting app that shows an ongoing, probable payout for exacta wagering, a must have feature for people like myself who only bet win and exactas. However, I've yet to sign up for NYRA bets. I no longer that often.

NYRA bets also provided AI selections based on so-called value found in the odds. This is called their Waigr feature. Get it? Wager spelled with an ai. Cute, right? If you like taking advice from something whose logic is unknown to you, go ahead. There is never anything, or anyone who doesn't have an opinion on the winner at the track. In short, information is never lacking. Lacking is people who bet.

Much was made of the youthful crowd at Monmouth's Haskell the other weekend. Despite the rain and the delays, everyone hung in there drinking beer and having a good time. But they weren't necessarily betting. Per capita betting was way down.

Racing is driven by handle, the amount of money bet. The latest, and most controversial of the wagering is the proliferation of so-called CAWs, Computer Assisted Wagering, by a nameless force that pumps significant dollars into a pool that can result in sudden, post time odds drops and truncated payoffs.

CAWs, if they do it right, can't lose. They get a 10% rebate on their betting handle. If they bet $100,000 and break even on bets, they still get a 10% rebate, $10,000. Found moneyI'm going to think, as well as hope, that the CAWs are not influencing the results, but only the payouts when they're right. I'm not naive enough to think there can't be shenanigans, but I'm of the belief that the game is scandal free when it comes to who wins a race.

Of course, who the CAWs are is a mystery. Bettors are always anonymous, like the people who own the land and buildings in Manhattan. No household names there.

The image at the top is telling in several ways. CAWs are thought to be pariahs. But NYRA bathrooms are clean. They are one of the few places you can find a free seat.

Handle funds the game. And the handle is a function of how much is bet, and NYRA doesn't care where that handle comes from. David O'Rourke explains that they have slowed down the CAW intake by lowering the volume of CAW bets that can be made per second, and supposedly kept out of certain pools. To the bettors, CAW activity is only apparent when the odds drop like an elevator with a cut cable.

The "newly imagined" Belmont is set to open September 18. I remember when a newly imagined Belmont was the one they rebuilt in 1968, the year I took to racing.

The promotional material for the "newly imagined place" is stunning. Suites, box seats, concierge betting. Never will so many amenities have been created and used by so few, on days other than the Belmont Stakes.

Amenities is what the place needed. All recently built ballparks have boxes, suites, and high priced seating packages. To attract the Breeders' Cup NYRA needed a new infrastructure.

On a few occasions I was treated to a meal in the Trustees Room at Belmont. A nice enough place to eat, but very dated in how it allowed you to view the races.

It is interesting that in a "Cart Talk" with Jonathon Kichen, CEO David O' Rourke remarked that they had the money to rebuild the track surfaces. Getting the nearly half billion dollar loan from New York State from governor Kathy Hocul made the full "newly imagined" place became possible.

If you're unfamiliar with "Cart Talk", it is a delightful segment on Fox sports telecasts with affable Jonathon in a golf cart buzzing around the backstretch with a jockey, trainer, or a race track executive for a round of is basically softball questions.

Jonathon is a past winner of one of those high-end handicapping contests that has propelled him into a racing analyst at the desk with the other Fox/NYRA presenters.

He is informative and not afraid to pick the favorite. His X handle is "@UTBIGHAIR" which is understandable when you know that if he's not in New York he is based in Texas, and sports a head full of wiry hair.

Jonathon is the only person at the Fox Sports Desk who looks like a horseplayer. The rest look like bankers. He has a distinct aversion to wearing anything that resembles a dress shirt with a tie and jacket. I suspect he won't be buried wearing anything he doesn't like, either. He sports colorful shirts that are part of a JK clothing line collection at Old Smoke. I've nearly been tempted to buy one. But I'd only be showing it off in the kitchen while watching racing.

My criticism of all those people who tell you about "value" and present overloaded horizontal tickets, that you likely have little chance of winning, is that they do not design a bet with what is lively and creative. They offer no Exacta advice, almost zero Trifecta advice, and certainly no rolling Daily Double advice. Everything is a Pick 4,5,6 ticket, with enough permutations, even with so-called singles in a race, and even at 50¢ bets, that can work its way up to significant change. Add to the likelihood you're going to get blown out on one of your legs early in your selections, and there are still races to bet. What do you do now? Only a few will ever go to the race track and leave early when they're losing.

NYRA is rightly proud of being the site of the 2027 Breeders' Cup races. But the Breeders' Cup people rent out the track. Any pricing for attendance and food is controlled by them.

So the Belmont Stakes is a guaranteed "marquee day." But NYRA knows that's not enough snob appeal. They need more "marquee days" and will designate them when they fill a card with Grade 1 races. Opening Day will certainly be a "marquee day."

And then? Belmont sits in Nassau County, just over the Queens, NYC border. It is not accessible by subway, like the now closed Aqueduct. Belmont will carry the load year round when they are not at Saratoga. Nuclear winter will be at Belmont.

How many people will come? Yet to be seen. But I know that when Belmont was open if they got 5,000 people on a regular weekend, and 2-3,000 on a weekday, they were getting a crowd. Will that continue? You betcha.

Saratoga is a vacation destination for downstaters, and a day trip for area residents. The track draws from New York, up and downstate, and people from Connecticut and New England. The demographic is decidedly white. If you hear Spanish you're overhearing the jockeys.

NYRA Bets is promoting its app with a commercial occasionally seen during the racing telecasts of three Gen-Zers doing what we know they do best—scroll a smart phone. The female in the middle gets excited because her bet wins, and NYRA Bets is then giving her a free bet. At least NYRA is promoting what makes the place go round: betting.

I'm keen to get to the "newly imagined" Belmont and see what they imagined. My plan is to go soon after the opening, hopefully when I can get a seat "with a back" for free, and only have to pay whatever general admission they might be charging.

I want to give myself a self-guided tour ahead of descending on the place with the remaining friends from what was once the four of us—The Assembled—but is now only three of us.

I've yet to get a handle on pricing, and what kind of seating might be available for "non-marquee" days. I live in Nassau County, so getting there is not a problem.

Gone are the days when I went to the races over 30 times a year. But hopefully, NYRA will price themselves attractively, and I can go more than twice a year. I'd love to be there more often.

The remaining three of us are all Senior Citizens. Discount, NYRA? Cup holders? Come on guys.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com