I make online wagers all the time through my account, but it's always at my desktop computer. I'm not much of a cell phone user, and use a small, outdated smartphone model handed down to me from my daughter Susan.
I can never cleanly enter characters with my fingers or fingernails. I have to use a rubber tipped stylus. It's only then that an F goes in as an F, and not a D or a G. Even with the stylus, being presented with a hand held screen that I rarely encounter, I had trouble navigating the entries.
I was watching the racing telecast courtesy of a hospital bed in Manhattan, lying slightly upright from a 30° tilt or so from the back position. I could see the telecast well enough, and the sound was fine. On Saturday at that hour I even had the semi-private room to myself, due to my roommate's afternoon discharge, so I was able to make the sound comfortably audible.
Over the last several years I've pretty much avoided betting the Breeders' Cup races. Too many horses, too many from overseas, too hard to get a good read on them, even with a deep dive into the past performances.
I've never had a winning Breeders' Cup day. I've had some memorable winners, especially Ridgewood Pearl, a filly who took a turf race years ago, beating males. The jockey was nearly being pulled out of the saddle by a horse so anxious to run during the warmups. I always look at her winner's circle photo at Belmont when I'm there.
I was once on my way to a very nice exacta payout until one of the foreign turn horses took a solid interest in what was going on in the stands and ruined my exacta by drifting toward the stands, as if to talk to someone as they approached the finish, leaving me with the exacta split of a 1-3 finish; horse racing's version of the bowling 7-10 split.
I liked Blame once in the Classic to beat Zenyatta, which they did. For some reason I only had Blame to win, and didn't bother making a very logical exacta bet. Brain freeze. Even when we win we lose.
So, as Jerry Bailey as the gang went over their blurbs for the Classic entrants, I knew enough of what the leading contenders were like to know that Knicks Go had never won at a mile and a quarter. I knew Max Player had won their last two starts at the distance, taking the Jockey Club Gold Cup at Saratoga, and the Suburban at Belmont.
The adage handed down from Pittsburgh Phil is you never bet on a horse trying to do something they've never done before. This can mean carrying their weight assignment, winning on a track that is now in a condition they've never encountered—something other than fast or firm—or trying to win at a distance they've never attempted.
Knicks Go is a solid, formidable front runner. But as the NYT reporter Joe Drape once pointed out to an attentive crowd at a book signing at Saratoga's Northshire book store years ago, champion horses take it to the front and hold on and win. Do we go with Pittsburgh Phil, or the longtime racing reporter?
Fumbling with my stylus and my phone, as the nurse is intently taking my blood pressure (from my left arm and I'm left handed) and aiming a thermometer for the space under my tongue, I manage to negotiate the unfamiliar screens and punch in my bet for Max Player.
The race is history. It's in the books. Kicks Go runs the race of their life, going wire-to-wire under Joel Rosario, and winning in a championship time of 1:59.57. Champions go to the front and win. (Unless of course you're Zenyatta.)
It's the last race of the day and my Max Player has run last. It's almost fitting. Did they not like the track? Possibly. They had never run at Del Mar before.
My betting lose is small. But my other bet is coming through and I'm recovering on all cylinders and I'm set to blow the taco stand on Tuesday. And I did.
The very good news is if there's a next time and I have to make an online bet via my phone, I won't be attached to a blood pressure cuff with a thermometer under my tongue.
Though I'm sure even with the stylus, I'll have trouble with the screens.
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