Find the first Saturday May, count two weeks forward and you've got the Preakness; then count three weeks forward and you've got the Belmont Stakes, the three races that make up the Triple Crown, something else even the non-horseplayer has heard about.
Yesterday, was the First Saturday in May, and The Assembled, while not geographically in the same place, had their minds in the same place, and were poring over past performances and looking for the angle.
I don't remember the first Derby I watched on television, but the first Derby I bet was the 1971 edition, won by Canonero II, the crooked legged horse from Venezuela, who later won the Preakness and was thought to be a cinch to win the Triple Crown. Well, that didn't happen.
The betting was made possible because New York City in 1971 started their Off-Track Betting operation in March. Now you could bet the Derby without knowing someone in a bar who was making book.
OTB, as Off-Track Betting became known as, did not get off to a smooth start. The computer system wasn't really ready, and you filled out betting slips that produced carbonless copies. The mutuel clerk, then only in Grand Central Terminal at the old New Haven and Hartford ticket windows, kept a copy in a cardboard box. If you hit, your part of the slip had to be matched up to the copy in the box before you collected.
At that time you got a payout based on the OTB pool. The monies wagered were not yet combined with the track. A pari-mutuel war broke out over who should get what. The New York Racing Association (NYRA) wanted nothing to do with OTB. Their patrons were the great unwashed. They were the enemy. You did get a payout that wasn't yet garnisheed by a "5% surcharge" on OTB payouts, an invention of Mayor Beame as part of helping the city through its financial crisis in 1973. So, just wait two years, and you will get screwed even more.
The operation was run by Howard J. Samuels, an upstate business guy who made a fortune in plastics. Whether he did this because he took the advice given in the movie 'The Graduate' is not known, but by 1971 Mr. Samuels was a multi-millionaire and a political candidate for governor. The newspaper reporters had a field day, especially Dick Young of the Daily News, who labelled him 'Howie the Horse.'
Howie the Horse was made extreme fun of because the promise of OTB was that it was going to put bookmakers out of business. It was as if this is what America was dying for--no bookmakers within 300 feet of a school. Well, that would eliminate all the neighborhood gin joints.
The premise of wiping out organized crime was indeed laughable, and the sportswriters had a field day. When there were eventually more places to make a bet in, the the "parlors," storefronts around town, Robert Lipsyte wrote a piece in the Times that I will forever remember. He claimed he loved going into an OTB parlor because it reminded him of the public library: he "never saw so many people reading and writing." He was right of course, but the material wasn't Plato.
OTB was a bit like Ford's Edsel. It looked funny, but it had a lot of good features. One innovation of NYC OTB was telephone wagering. Establish an account, call the mutuel clerk, make your bet, confirm you're bet, and you were in. Winnings were credited to your account. There was no bookmaker-style credit however. Like all the ADMs-Advance Deposit Wagering sites there are now--you had to have money on deposit to make a bet.
I immediately established a phone account, and probably kept it for several decades. My password was 'Snoopy." Having an account made me the go-to guy to make a bet for the 1971 Derby amongst my co-workers. And they did somewhat flood me with bets. I was all too willing to do my part to drive out the insidious bookmakers no one was ever betting with anyway. I was swelled with civic pride.
Another feature of OTB was that each horse was an betting entity in itself. This may sound strange, but you had to realize at the time the mutuel machines at the track could only operate up to 12 entries. If there were more than 12 horses in the race they were grouped into something called the "field." The field was the number 12, with however many horses the oddsmaker needed to group in there to account for all the entrants. Generally, the longshots were placed in the field.
So, in the 1971 Derby, Canonero II was placed in the field. He was considered a longshot, despite having run the mile and qarter distance in Venezuela. One thing about the field and the Derby crowd, was the mentality that by betting the field you were getting all these other horses with your bet. If was as if you were getting coupon two-fers. I don't remember how many horses were in the field with Canonero II, but the final odds dropped significantly from the morning line longshot status, all because the crowd looked at the field betting as getting a bargain.
Well, at OTB the was no field grouping, just like now you never see a field grouping as a wagering option. There can be multi-horse entries, a form of grouping driven by common ownership, but they are less common than they used to be.
Thus, Canonero II's odds were allowed to float on their own, and at OTB they floated up. He did win, and I don't remember what he paid at the track as part of the field, but it was nowhere near what he paid at NYC OTB. I distinctly remember at OTB I was on the hook for having to give Tina at work $118 for her $4 win bet on the horse. She liked the Spanish angle.
When you're dealing with as unproven operation as NYC OTB was at the time-- matching betting slips at a window from a cardboard box--your confidence in their telephone system can descend. I was starting to imagine my bets were unrecorded, and I was never going to get to take out the $118 to pay Tina. I started to sweat.
The good news is that the phone system did work, my account was credited with the winnings, and I did get to take the money out and pay Tina. She was so excited at winning she bought be a nice coffee table book as a gift. Imagine, the "bookmaker" got a book.
The First Saturday in May is often called "the most exciting two minutes in sports." The memories can last longer.
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Hang on Snoopy, hang on! Somebody bet on da bay!
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