A Virtual Day at the Races

A few days ago I saw a Tweet from someone asking if anyone out there would share how they watched the races back in the '80s if they weren't at the track. Obviously this was asked by someone who is a lot younger than myself, for as anyone knows, you didn't watch the races in the '80s, '70s, '60s, etc. unless you were at the track. Even OTBs, started in New York City in 1971, eventually only provided a simulated stretch call of the race as the audio contribution to delivering the result.

You read about the races; there were charts of the races in major newspapers; there were entries as well. Over time, these features shrunk, or disappeared. The NYT these days barely reports on racing. The sports page doesn't even include beat reporter stories on the local baseball teams, the Mets and the Yankees. No league standings, either. If you want the information you once got from a newspaper, you have to go to another source these days, usually online. The good news is that it's still there.

It was the dark ages for racing telecasts. No satellite coverage. The only televised racing were the Triple Crown races, and New York's Channel 9 Race of the Week hosted by Frank Wright and Charlsie Canty on Saturdays, produced by Marvin H. Sugarman productions.

Before them, I think Win Elliot was host of the show. If you remember Win Elliot you should have a will made out by now and "do not resuscitate" instructions in someone's hands.

Frank was a trainer from the Midwest circuit who did run horses in New York, with modest to no success. Frank I. Wright. Charlsie had racing bona fides due to being married to Joe Canty, a trainer who enjoyed some success in that era. Joe trained Temperance Hill at 53-1 to a win in the 1980 Belmont, beating Genuine Risk (filly who won the Derby) and Codex (who mugged the filly in the Preakness, ridden by Angel Cordero), the only horse in the race to be wearing caulks for the less than fast surface. I was there that day. I didn't have it.

Frank was instructional. I remember him telling us where the expression "hard boot" came from, a reference to a trainer.  Seems their boots got hard when they dried out after they were up early in the morning and getting wet from the dew on the grass. We also learned about shoeing a horse, and how the farrier files the hoof down and nailed the steel plate, a process that is not at all painful to the horse.

Now, if you know and get the cable channels, or know the sites for Internet streaming, you can watch a race from just about anywhere in real time. And best of all, you can bet and not be at what are now mostly closed OTB parlors, inhabited by the near-insane on day passes from the local psychiatric hospital.

And so it was myself yesterday, satisfying my Saratoga urge to be there with a home printed copy of the 13 race card from the Daily Racing Form. The price has crept us there, ($4.25) but it certainly beats trying to get one of the 5 hard copies delivered to a newsstand in the area, and ones that cost over twice as much. I mean, how many homes in America do not have a printer and several reams of copy paper somewhere in the house?

And before I even made my first bet, I was a winner when I complained to the Racing Form that they blew it when they provided a Closer Look analysis for Saturday's 12th and 13th races using horses that were not the horses entered at Saratoga for those races. It's happened before, but this time I complained via email, got an apology, and a credit for my next purchase. I wonder if the booklet hardcopy was unaffected.

My  plan was to play the feature races, and maybe the last two on the card. I made a ceremonial win and place bet on a D. Wayne Lukas horse in the first race, Track Mate going off at nearly 11-1. The octogenarian Lukas has a few winners at the meet, coming from 2-year-olds. Track Mate fit the hoped for pattern; a Maiden Special Weight race, 2-year-olds, (a Lukas specialty) 6 furlongs, with several unraced horses. Track Mate's one prior start was a respectable 6th place finish over the track, only beaten 5¾ lengths at the beginning of the month. Better form usually kicks in after the first start.

And it did. Track Mate was right up there, looking every bit as the likely winner, until... until the unraced Verifying got involved, an expensive $775,000 Keeneland purchase, sired by Justify and trained by Brad Cox, going off as the 75¢ favorite ridden by Joel Rosario, who at this point was feeling very good after being under the weather the prior week. 

My win/place bet on Track Mate proved the right choice, and I made a few dollars. Hitting the first bet is always pleasing.

I went dormant until the 4th race, only having the winner as part of an exacta that ran 1-4. Not even close there.

The 5th race was named the Forego, a Grade1 7f race with a $600,000 purse. To me, it should be named The Mighty Forego, because after Dr. Fager, Forego was the one horse who could carry weight, run fast, and win. He was one of my favorite horses, and I've held him completely blameless for all these decades for my busted $50 win bet on him in the 1974 Metropolitan Mile at Belmont when Heliodoro Gustines sent him through blistering factions, only to have him finish second to an extreme long shot Arbees Boy who paid $122. I never bet $50 ever again.

There is no NYRA race named in honor of Dr. Fager, but there is a race named for his trainer John A. Nerud who lived to be 102, passing away in 2015.

To me, a 7f race is the hardest race to win and the hardest race to handicap. It is between a sprint and a route. The distance reminds me of the great indoor track runner Martin McGrady, who was a specialist at winning the 600 yard races indoors when there was an indoor track circuit. If there were pari-mutuel wagering on McGrady's 600 yard races, he'd go off at 1/10.

Jackie's Warrior was the formidable favorite in the Forgo. A winner of 12 out of 16 races and $2.6 million, Jackie's Warrior at 4 is sporting the unique record of winning a Grade1 race at Saratoga in each of his three years of racing and going 5 for 5 at Saratoga. Surely was single city for all those multi-leg wagers.

And 7f is hardly his Achilles heel. He'd won 3 out of 4 7f races, and finished 2nd in the one he didn't win. As good as he is, he failed to show up at 50¢ to the dollar in last year's Breeders' Cup 6f sprint, finishing 6th. Del Mar was not to his liking.

No one could make fun of you if you singled Jackie's Warrior, or keyed him in some exotics. His apparent invincibility was there for all to see, as well as the 15¢ to the dollar odds.

I got creative, and looked to #5 Cody's Wish to complete an exacta with Jackie's Warrior. Cody had never won at 7f but had several recent wins at a mile in competitive races, and anytime a horse cuts back from a 11/16 or a mile, to 7f, they deserve a look.  

No one ever bets enough on a winning horse, and my exactas were not as heavy on the 5/3 outcome as they were on the 3/5 outcome. I made money to the race, with Cody's Wish contributing to an $18 win bet, and a $24.60 (for $2) exacta bet. The time was a blistering 1.20.95, after decent early fractions, but a fast 6f split of 1:08.76. The final time was a tick off the track record of 1:20.40 by Darby Creek Road in 1978. Cody's Wish was a tick slower than the track record.  

Trained by Bill Mott and ridden by Junior Alvarado, Cody's Wish ran a spectacular race coming from 6th place to a going away 1¼ length victory.

The refrain of Saratoga being The Graveyard of Champions was heard from many. There were a lot of busted multi-leg wagers after that outcome.

You are in rare air when you run 1:20 anything for 7f. To this day, I will forever remind people that Dr Fager in 1968 ran the 7f Vosburgh Handicap at Aqueduct in 1:20 1/5 (new track record) carrying the staggering impost of 139 pounds, when handicap races were actually handicapped by weight by the racing secretaries. Leveling the competitive playing field was considered achievable if you assigned more weight. I watched that race on Channel 9.

The current Aqueduct track record is now held by Artax at 1:20.04 when he carried a feathery impost of 114 pounds in 1999. No one has ever come close to Dr. Fager's achievement.

Took a break and hit the pps for the 8th race, the H. Allen Jerkens Memorial 7f Grade1 race, once known as The King's Bishop. As the Forego is for older horses, the Jerkens race is strictly for 3-year-olds, and the current sprinting champ of the crop is Jack Christopher, a lightly raced colt who has had only 5 starts before Saturday. 

His last was an experiment in a two-turn race, the 9 furlong Haskell at Monmouth when he lost for the first time. The two-turn experiment will not be repeated. He finished a respectable 3rd, beaten by Cyberknife, finishing two lengths behind the winner.

I left Jack out of my exactas. Dangerous indeed, since Jack's trainer Chad Brown is accomplished enough to not let the Haskell experiment dull his charge. And it didn't. Jack dusted a good field. My Gunite ran a respectable 2nd to Jack, but ignoring Jack certainly cost me.

The Personal Ensign, Grade1 followed, with 5 very good mares entered, rematching Clairiere and Malathaat. To expect another 1-2 finish from those two was not a leap.

The expression goes that races are not run on paper, and when Clairiere broke last and looked like she wanted no part of running yesterday afternoon, a lot of wagers went out the window with that development. She finished last of the 5 horses, never picking up her feet.

Wha' happened? In medicine, it is said that the pathologist, coroner, knows everything, but it is too late for the person on the slab to have anyone do anything to prevent the condition that put them there. The pathologist knows everything. But it's too late for drawing breath.

At the track the chart caller knows all. And reading the chart for the Personal Ensign and how it pertains to Clairiere you now know all:

CLAIRIERE became very fractious in the gate and hit the front of the stall door twice, had the right shoulder of the assistant starter contact the head of the jockey leaving the gate, angled to the rail early, dropped well behind while sluggish on the inside, lagged at the rear under some coaxing, saved ground under stronger encouragement around the final turn, was put to the crop outside the furlong marker and failed to threaten.

When you look at the pps next out, you put a line through that race.

The less said about the Sword Dancer the better for me. A rather typical full field of 10 for a prestige 1½ mile Grade1 turf race, won by the horse who won it last year, Gufo, trained by Christopher Clement and ridden by Joel Rosario. They put blinkers on Gufo after a multi-race absence, and it made a difference.

There was only one horse coming straight from Europe, trained by Aidan O'Brien, Broome, who was sent off as the favorite at $1.55. Broome came with the jet-setting jockey Ryan Moore, the regular rider. But Andy Serling and Jonathon Kinchen had it right in their pre-race analysis: just because the horse is from Europe doesn't mean it's a great horse. It was pointed out by Little Andy that trainer Aidan O'Brien is 0-for-10 at Saratoga in the last 5 years. Broome never threatened, finishing 4th.

Gufo was slightly ignored at $4.40 to $1. Second place was captured by a long shot Mira Mission, really ignored in the betting who went off at nearly 19-1 and completed the $2 exacta for $203. Mira Mission was trained by Ian Wilkes and ridden by Julian Leparoux. Nice work if you had it.

It's not called Travers Day for no reason. The Mid-Summer Derby at a 1¼ is a $1,250,000 Grade1 that helps anoint the 3-year-old of the year.

Chad Brown had three entrants, the winner of the Preakness in Early Voting. Steve Asmussen had Epicenter, a bit of a bridesmaid finishing second in the Derby and the Preakness but the winner of the Jim Dandy over the track at Saratoga. Any handicapper will tell you a win over the day's surface counts.

Bill Mott had an entrant, Gilded Age; Brad Cox had Cyberknife, the winner of the Grade1 Haskell; Kelly Von Hemel had Ain't Life Grand, and Eric Reed had Rich Strike, the Kentucky Derby winner at nearly 80-1 that stunned the horse racing world.

Despite the Derby win at today's distance, Rich Strike was not considered a threat. The former $30,000 maiden claimer, he finished a poor 6th in the Belmont, but showed up here anyway. The purse, or even a part of it, was certainly worth it. He wasn't completely ignored in the betting, going off at nearly 11-1, but pretty much was never a threat, finishing fourth and at least probably making enough to justify being there.  At this point, Rich Strike has only ever won two races, both at Churchill Downs. He's still eligible for non-winners of two other than.

As anyone who knows by now, Epicenter showed up BIG TIME and sealed the deal. Trained by Steve Asmussen and ridden by Joel Rosario for Winchell Thoroughbreds (the maroon silks with the W on the back), Epicenter made it look easy, going off at even money and making that look like a gift. The final time of 2:00.72 was more than decent. 

Of all the trainers represented in the Travers not one of them had won it. My exacta with Zandon, one of Chad Brown's three entrants, and Epicenter, who I had in the Derby, was my play of the day. 

As Epicenter made it clear in the stretch, the battle was for second I was trying with all my body English to get Zandon into the place spot. I lost track of the possible payout, but the result, either way, was going to make my day.

Blanket finish for second, but I had to believe even before the replay, that Cybereknife held on for second, and Zandon got close, but that only counts in horseshoes.

Zandon was close for second, finishing a nose behind Cyberknife. When someone loses a photo, someone wins a photo, but it wasn't me this time.

Undaunted, I took a quick look at the 11th race. Dinner wasn't ready yet, and there was time. The trainer David Donk has been doing very well at the meet, so far recording 5 wins from 33 starts. Donk is more than a capable trainer, and is always seen wearing a green Jets baseball cap. You've got to appreciate his optimism and loyalty there.

The #1 horse in the 11th, is a Donk entrant, Kressa, unraced, but with an absolute ton of good looking workouts showing, going all the way back to June 25. 

I interpret this as a sign that they finally found the right spot for the horse. Surely there have been 5½ turf Maiden Special Weight races during the meet the horse could have gone in, but this was the one it was in. Maybe the owners waited for Travers Day, I don't know.

The $5,000 Big Brown stud fee for the homebred out of Lady Kressa indicates a very family affair. Susan and Gerald Kresa own and bred the horse. I loved the nearly 12-1 odds. And John Velazquez riding added to the confidence, because as anyone who tunes in knows, Johnny just rode his 1,000th Saratoga winner the other day, a record held by no other jockey.

There are no world beaters in maiden races. As Charlie Brown from Peanuts once sighed, "there is no greater burden than a great potential." Or was it Lucy?

So, while Linda Rice's career maiden Feathers Road looks like a the horse to beat, can you trust a horse that is 0-11 not going 0-12 with your money on it?

But as is so often in these state bred Maiden Special Weights, the eligibility is open for 3 and 4-year-olds. Older horses, even at this stage of the calendar are considered to hold an advantage over their younger rivals.

Linda's horse is career maiden 4-year-old. Kressa is an unraced 3-year old. I don't care. Kressa still trumps a 0-11 maiden who's been losing consistently in races with 3 and 4 year-olds entered.

Typical turf finish. Blanket charge at the wire. Head, head and neck separate the top 4. Kressa? I lose another photo a head behind the career maiden, Linda Rice's Feathers Road, Linda's second winner on the card. Over the years, I've been on both sides of photo finishes. Winner and runner up. Today was the runner up version.

Taps. Day is done for me. Win or lose, there's always a good meal waiting.

For some reason, when I sign onto Twitter, I get a heaping helping of horse racing Tweets from people I do not follow (I follow almost no one). Usually they are informative, and I quickly scroll through them.

One the other day particularly stood out from being from someone in Texas who claims racing bona fides but who is an absolute jerk. I usually do not respond to Tweets, but I did this one. The Tweeter posted an image of the NYRA Saturday card at Saratoga, showing the full array of 13 races and all the betting possibilities. 

They then added the perplexing comment: 

you can't grow the sport with younger folks by having a 13 race card that spans over 7 hours

Is this guy for real?

Now the guy's from Texas, that is perhaps filled with horses, but that doesn't mean he knows much about horse racing, especially New York horse racing, and especially Saratoga racing.

My response was:

And your solution is..? Run all the races at once for a generation that has no attention span and doesn't read anything that 's not on their phone? True horseplayers like 13 races with accomplished horses and all the betting possibilities there are.

Younger people do go to the races. Each year at Saratoga I see them all. Maybe they're not handicapping very much, but they're eating, drinking and betting. This year's Travers saw a crowd of 49,672 souls crowd Saratoga. The handle, from all sources, was up over $3 million from last year, topping out at $55.6 million.

I saw two Tweets that were interesting. Daniel O'Rourke, CEO honcho at NYRA predicts fixed wagering on next year's Travers. Monmouth was going to experiment with that, and I don't know how it worked out.

What would be the odds? The morning line? Booking bets does not always mean the bookmaker comes out ahead. Perhaps over time you gain an edge, but one race can sink you with the right amounts spread over the entrants. And how do you figure the take? 

The candy store bookmakers in Queens I grew up with in the '50s and '60s would cap their payouts. No one got paid at greater than 20-1. Daily doubles, the only exotic bet of the era, was also capped. Rich Strike at 81-1 in the Derby would only payout at 20-1. Nevertheless, fixed odds wagering is intriguing.

Another Tweet mentioned that bettors might soon see over/under proposition wagering on say, will Rosario win more or less than 1.5 stake races on the card? How many exactas will the Ortiz brothers figure in? How many winners will Chad Brown score with?

That kind if wagering could interest me. But like anything else at the track, the results of photos will determine winners and losers.

Don't I know it.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com

Postcard from The Spa

We weren't sure it was going to happen again, but we managed to get to Saratoga for what might now might be the 25th consecutive year, We started coming in 1975 when Wajima won Travers, ridden by the erect Sphinx-like Braulio Baeza. I don't remember if I won money that day, but I did have Wajima. No matter what you win, you find yourself coming back, this time for only three racing days vs. five

Changes since 1975? Some. The tote board is not lit by bulbs, but probably LED lighting that renders the numbers bigger and in color. The tote board for some reason reminds me of bubble gum. More self-service betting via machines and vouchers, but money is still money and you can still find a teller.

The main feature was the Alabama on Saturday. I will forever remember the 2013 Alabama when I went to get $100 out of the ATM. The machine shuffled out six! 20s, rather than the correct five. Who says you can't win at the races! Now, the ATM will dispense a single $100 bill for a $100 withdrawal. I miss that old machine. Oh well.

Since our stay was compressed to three racing days we went straight to the track from home on Thursday at 9:30. We picked up Johnny M. in Flushing and headed for Exit 14 on the Northway. I think the car could drive itself there.

Since we knew it would be close to make the first race, selections were bet online before leaving. And sure enough, just as we were crossing Union Avenue into the track the first race was being announced. We didn't win, but it doesn't count if you bet and are not there yet, right? It's sort like a pre-season game.

The dichotomy of starting a day in downtown Flushing with Asian signage EVERYWHERE, to arriving upstate in 3½ hours is not to be believed. Even if you haven't really travelled back in time 100 years as Red Smith so famously put it, you have still travelled back to a time that does seem preserved in amber. It is Brigadoon.

The walk from the free parking accessed from Henning Road could be a walk made 100 years ago. More, actually. Your path between the Horse Haven track from 1863 and the Oklahoma training track takes you through some stables and backstretch dorms that without the electric golf carts, could be on postcards from the 19th-century.

We settled into our reserved spot in the Fourstardave sports bar, feeling like we never left the place from a year ago. Even the waitress was the same efficient, young woman as last year. We hit the 2nd and 3rd race exactas, missed the 4th race, but hit the 5th race.  Winning at the track is always a good thing; winning the first two bets you make—and those bets being exacta bets—is even better. We we're rolling toward what turned out to be a profitable day. The die is cast, no? 

No. Friday was a downer, scratching out the day with only one winner, and an erosion of the voucher value. The play is to start the outing with a voucher, and bet off it, rolling the winnings into fattening it.

We did however luck out by being there for one of the giveaway days on Friday, this year a smart looking long-sleeve red and white T-shirt. You have to go back by the Big Red Spring to redeem your coupon, passing through the throng of people who have come early, staked out a piece of ground as if it were the Oklahoma land rush, surrounding themselves with chairs, tables and giant coolers. If you didn't know different, you might think a mass of humanity came up from the Kentucky floods and brought whatever could grab out of the house. They are a tradition.

I always marvel at the crowd at Saratoga as they promenade past the Fourstardave. No one is carrying a Racing Form, program, tout sheet, or sports section from the Times Union, Post Star or The Saratogian. No one is handicapping. They are however eating and drinking. To me, never have so many people been seen at a race track who don't seem to be there to handicap, but to rather just pick a name and bet, if they can stop eating and drinking long enough to free up a hand.

For some reason, there were no large size T-shirts. They just plain didn't have any. None were produced. My wife, who this year made the trip, was fine with her medium size, and Johnny M and I went to the XL ones. They shrink anyway. And my proportions there days are better suited to the XL size anyway.  Johnny M. not so much.

When my number analysis favors it, I will sometimes make a 50¢ Trifecta box. I've hit a few of these over the years. Nothing big, but a cashable ticket is better than a losing ticket.

The 5th race on Saturday on paper looked to be a very tight race, favoring no one really. It was a Maiden Special Weight Race, 11/6 on the turf.

My numbers pointed to a strong 1/5 exacta, with a 1/5/6 Trifecta possibility. Bets were made accordingly.

Anyone who has watched turf racing knows that there can be some mighty close finishes. They all seem to keep coming at the end, creating winners and losers with not a lot of separation between them.

Such was how the 5th race ended. four horses hit the wire, with it discernible that the 5 won, Rarified Air by the tiniest of margins. The rest? Your guess. Was it the 1/6/2 in there? 

Before cameras, there were placing judges poised overlooking the finish line, trying to establish the order of finish from a tower. The Whitney Tower. Old photos show this. It's hard to imagine they

always got it right when there were exceedingly close finishes.

A few years ago, NYRA made a replica of this judging stand an plopped it overlooking the Oklahoma training track. When it was first built, they let you climb the steps and imagine that you were judging a finish. We always pass walking to the track after taking in the free parking if you come in off Henning Road. Lately the Whitney stand seems chained off, and I don't see anyone satisfying their curiosity. Really no big deal.

I think of the era of eyeballing the order of finish when there is an exceedingly close finish. And the finish for Saturday's 5th race could hardly be closer. The winner, Rarified Flair, the 5 horse, could be deduced to have won. After that, it's a jump ball.

Was I alive for my exacta? For my Triple? When it takes more time than usual to post the complete order of finish, you can almost always win a bet that there is a dead heat in there somewhere. And of course, after many minutes of waiting, there was a dead heat finish.

Official order of finish: 5/2. Dead Heat 1/6. Thus, the exacta was 1/6 for the payoff; there were two Trifectas: 5/2/1; 5/2/6. Did I have it? No. The 2 got in there and upset my applecart. John Velazquez, picking up Joel Rosario's mounts because of an illness, got in there with Conversing at nearly 9-1.

Four horses finished a head and a neck apart. I got oogatz. That would have been nice to hit the exacta and the trifecta in the same race. What game isn't a game of inches? Chess. Poker. Backgammon.

Once official, it is what it is, much as I hate that expression. After once again winning the first bet of the day, the day finished up in a very melodramatic fashion. Down $40 for the three days. Headed home on Sunday, and not via the track.

I once heard a CEO of the company I worked for brush off a $17 million loss on a monumentally failed software effort as having at least provided "great tuition."

I get my education for a lot less.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com

Breakage

It caught my eye immediately. On Saturday I happened to see the payouts at Churchill Downs on the Fox Network Racing Across America Show: $18.74, $8.04, $4.16. In the DRF chart, dollar odds stated as: $8.37, $2.71, $8.72...etc.

WTF?

My suspicious were quickly confirmed when I Googled what might he going on with pari-mutuel payouts in Kentucky. Penny breakage.

Huh?

Believe it or not, it's a good thing for the bettors. A payout is increased because the rounding determination for the payout is rounded to the nearest penny, not the nearest nickel or dime. New York had dime breakage for years; then nickel. Canada always had nickel breakage.

With dime breakage, when the payout is computed it is rounded to the lowest ten-cent number. If the calculation says the payout should be $2.36, then the payout is rounded down to $2.30 for a dollar. Not a great deal, but an erosion of a return.

In the old days in New York, when all betting was done through a clerk at a window, The Seller punched out your bet. On the other side of this bank of windows were the Cashiers, those that cashed your ticket if you won something. 

With dime breakage, the tellers on the Cashier side only ever had to have dimes and quarters ready to hand you. There was no need for nickels, and certainly no pennies. 

You had to be careful when you got a payout. Mutuel clerks sometimes would short you some change if they could get away with it. Everyone was on the hustle. 

And if you had a previous day's ticket to cash, you had to go to a special window where the clerk looked up the payout in a ledger of green-bar IBM paper. If you didn't know what you were supposed to get, they might try and gyp you there too.

Racing would have died a long time ago if it weren't for computers and satellite telecasts. The computer makes all kinds of bets possible. The numerous multi-leg wagers, the rolling Daily Doubles, Exactas, Quinella, Trifectas, Superfectas, The Grand Slam.

The Grand Slam is a NYRA bet devised decades ago that requires you to have picked any horse that finishes first, second, or third in the three races prior to the feature, and couple those selections with the winner of the feature. It's the strangest bet I know of, and they still use it in New York, even to the tune of there being a $72,605 Grand Slam pool Saturday at Saratoga. It paid $23.50 for a $1. I might have played it once.

This year NYRA introduced a Triple Play which involves three designated races on Friday, Saturday or Sunday's card at Saratoga. The bet is a minimum of $3 with a lower takeout of 19%. So far, I'm not having much luck on looking up how that bet has been going and what its payouts have been.

On July 15 Kentucky introduced "penny breakage" which in effect means there is no rounding down—the calculated payout is made however the calculation comes out, even if it involves pennies, like $18.74, $8.04, $4.16...etc.

This does put a few more cents back in the bettors' pockets, and with the voucher systems, and online betting, does not really introduce physically pushing small change back to the bettor.

Dime and even nickel breakage was a subtle way of taking even more money off the top—MOTT—I always like to say. In addition to the takeout, which can vary based on the type of bet, with multi-leg bets being assessed the highest takeout, breakage could amount to 1.2% of the day's mutuel handle. A small percentage of a large number will still be a large number. Otherwise known as gravy. The crumbs can be nutritious.

I can't imagine penny breakage back in the old days when there were no vouchers or online betting. It would have meant the cashiers would have had to have all denominations of coinage available, and would have to dish out payouts like you were getting change at the supermarket.

They would have never stood for it. They would have gone on strike. Mutuel clerks of old were not a friendly lot, unionized over the years by a variety of organizations. At one point I think they were part of the electricians' union in New York.

As I've stated in prior postings, I pretty much stick to win and exacta wagering. I disdain multi-leg wagering because you can really start to bet a lot of money trying to hit one of those, and get blown out very easily. Also, your carefully crafted handicapped long shot that wins, but is inside a multi-leg wager, will reward you with bupkus unless you've separately played it. More money laid out.

Personally, I'm waiting for "build-your-own" multi-leg bets. You pick the races for a personalized Daily Double, Pick 3, 4, 5, 6, etc. Of course this would introduce an incredible number of extra pools into the system, and might be seen to cannibalize the well-liked consecutive multi-leg bets that can build to large carryover pools and life changing payouts with the right mix of long shots.

But if I put together a Pick-3 ticket on three races I pick, then I still think there's a terrific chance that others will pick the same three races, and we will in effect create our own intermittent race pool. Payouts could have wild anomalies to the individual prices, both high and low.

It's a radical thought, but one I could look forward to. And if NYRA wants to climb on board with penny breakage, I'll accept it. Anything that gives you more money back is a good thing.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com

The Novelist

I like to read. I like to write a bit, but I could never be a novelist.

Lots of people could never be a novelist, so I don't feel inferior to anything. I just recognize what the limitations are on what kind of sentences I can string together. And that number could NEVER turn into a book—even non-fiction.

If the high school guidance counselor, Mrs. Bittkower, that I went to see after I dropped out of my second college had sent me to a job opening at the NYT rather than a health insurance company, I might have made my way up from whatever entry position that was to perhaps a byline. Who knows?

I certainly was the clay that could have been molded into a reporter. I knew the city. I was, and still am, sardonic. And in those days drinking was a pastime, so I'm sure I wouldn't lack for a partner or two downstairs at whatever bar was favored by the crew. I did lack a driver's license, but so did Jimmy Breslin. He just got someone to take him to wherever he had to go.

This blog scratches my itch to write, and as anyone knows who might admit to reading it, there is nothing posted that could ever be turned into a novel—at least not one written by me.

A favorite subject of NYT obituaries are those who have passed away and might have achieved some fame in the arts, perhaps writing. So when I read the obit for Susie Steiner I was intrigued by what she might have written.

It was described that she was British and created a woman police detective Manon Bradshaw that she featured in three novels. Having started the first one in the series, "Presumed, Missing" I don't think "police procedural" applies, although the settings are a police detective squad and a young adult missing female from a well-connected family.

Why Masterpiece Theater hasn't caught up to creating a miniseries on Manon is a mystery itself to me. Perhaps one is in the works, although since I'm halfway through the book, I can offer that Manon is not a very exciting person. Or even eccentric by most stretches of that definition. Manon, 39, is unmarried and goes on Internet dates, which gives the author things to write about that have absolutely nothing to do with police work. They do however have plenty to do with Manon.

Each chapter is titled after one of the characters in the narrative, Manon, Harriet, Miriam, Davy, Helena, etc. Sometimes consecutive chapters are titled after Manon. She is, after all, the chief protagonist.

The obit on Susie Steiner mentioned how her books would be said to be "literary crime." Ms. Steiner's London-based agent, Sarah Ballard, tells us: 

"I've lost track of the number of jackets designed to look like hers, and the number of publishers, scouts and film companies who've used her name to describe a genre of writing they want: They mean literary crime, with a compelling plot, an elegance and wit in the writing, combined with a depth of perception about which leaves you feeling deeply satisfied." 

Well, she was her agent after all.

But it's true. There are whole chapters about what someone is doing other than police work: how they're feeling. I'm only halfway through the book and there are only a few people who the police are interested in. Edith has been missing for over two weeks now, and we all know what that usually means for a missing person.

I remember reading about Frank McCourt who taught creative writing at my old high school, Stuyvesant. He was before my time, and of course he went on to some fame for writing about his Irish upbringing, particularly in "Angela's Ashes."

Frank took over the Creative Writing curriculum from the English teacher I had, but who I never took Creative Writing with, Henry Wozniak.

We always suspected Mr. Wozniak might have been gay. Honestly, we didn't care. I might have had him twice for English, and I will always remember he was well dressed, and that he spoke with precision. 

There was a day when he announced that he's become aware that the cut rate for his class has "reached epic proportions." I never cut any classes, and I've never forgotten the use of the word "epic."

I was told that several years after I graduated in 1966, Mr. Wozniak came out of the closet and showed up to say hello in front of the old building on 15th Street in full leather, earrings and hopped off a Harley, clearly enjoying himself. I wish I had seen that. I might have told him his look was "epic." Frank McCourt wrote about in his book "Teacher."

Anyway, I read that McCourt would instruct his students how to write creatively by revealing more detail. A student turns in a story and says, "He came back from the store." Okay, what store, what did they buy, what did they do with the items after getting home, what's the weather like? Creative writing. I could never be bothered to paint in all those details.

I just finished a chapter in "Missing, Presumed" that is devoted entirely to Harriet, the missing girl's mother, and the emotional roller coaster ride she's going on because the police have really made little to no progress in finding her daughter—in any state.

The rain spits into Miriam's face, spattering the shoulders of her beige Burberry—too thin a layer for January—and she squints into the wind up Chamberlayne Road toward Kenal Rise station, relieved to have said goodbye to Jonti [Edith's old boyfriend] and the guilt.

Only in England would there be a thoroughfare named Chamberlayne Road, and an ex-boyfriend named Jonti. God bless the Brits.

I could never be a novelist.

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Vin and David

We recently lost two storytellers, Vin Scully and David McCullough, whose voices held the sound of time.

They both  excelled in widely different formats and subjects, but like a description of the old Penn Station that Thomas Wolfe wrote in "You Can't Go Home Again," "the station was murmurous with the immense and distant sound of time," their voices held the sound of time. Vin's the stories of baseball; David's American history.

Both had similar ancestral backgrounds, Scotch/Irish and Irish, and perhaps that's where the gift of storytelling came from. Relatives at the dinner table.

I wasn't a Dodger fan growing up in Queens in the 1950s. It was the Yankees for me. As such, I didn't grow up with Vin's voice on the radio. I was of course familiar with his calls later in his life when he did national broadcasts on TV.

I remember a few stories he told. One had to do with his keeping a sand dial in front of him to remind him to give the score before the sand ran out. Once he gave the score, he flipped the sand dial over and waited through another cycle. The listener was always informed, not through graphics, but through voice.

Another story had to do when the Dodgers finally beat the Yankees in the 1955 World Series, the only World Series they won while in Brooklyn before they abandoned a city's fans. There are those who will tell you that the demolition of Penn Station in the middle '60s was an urban sin. Some of those same people will tell you the Giants and Dodgers leaving for the West Coast after the 1957 season was another example of Original Sin.

Vin described the intensity of baseball fandom in that golden era of three baseball teams in New York City; The Yankees, the Giants and the Dodgers. No other city in the country boasted three major league teams. No other city was big enough to hold all those grudges.

Vin described the drive back from Yankee Stadium after Dem Bums beat the Yankees in the seventh game. There were no celebrations of fans along the route out of the Bronx or Manhattan as he headed toward the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel that connects lower Manhattan with Brooklyn.

Once the car emerged from the tunnel in Brooklyn, Vin described a scene of "Bedlam." Horns were honking, people were dancing in the streets, paper was flying everywhere; joy was in the air. There were no celebratory fans along the route in The Bronx or Manhattan for the Dodgers. Those boroughs were as quiet as a bank on Sunday. Such was the localization of baseball fandom in the New York '50s.

Until the obituary for Vin Scully I didn't realize his New York roots: Fordham Prep, Fordham University, schools in The Bronx. But Vin grew up rooting for the New York Giants because he felt sorry for them. Those who grew up in Manhattan, like my father, rooted for the Giants since they played at the Polo Grounds on 155th Street, pretty much across the Harlem River from the Bronx and Yankee Stadium.

I didn't remember that it was Vin Scully's voice I was listening to as he New York Mets came from behind against the Boston Red Sox in Game 6 in the 1986  World Series in the 10th inning with two outs to force a Game 7, and eventually extend The Curse of the Bambino over an entire New England region.

Mookie Wilson is famously at bat. He skips rope to avoid a wild pitch which allows Kevin Mitchell to score form third. Ray Knight goes from first to second. Game tied. Mookie still at bat. Count is 2-2.

Mookie's been fouling them off, but finally connects with a ball that goes fair, a cue shot along the first base line. The Sox first baseman Bill Buchner crows hops over to field the ball, only to watch it go between his legs and dribble into right field.

Ray Knight rounds second, third and scores. If Bobby Thomson's homer against the Dodgers was "The Shot Heard Round the World" then this was the dribbler that was heard around the world. 

BEDLAM. 55,078 at Shea are going NUTS. The Mets have tied the Series. My phone rings. It's my father, calling from Crystal City, Virginia where he lives, one eye nearly closed because of the encroaching cancer, but still able to see.

We've long ago become Met fans as soon as a National League team moved back to New York. Shea Stadium was less than two miles from the house in Flushing.

Scully just lets the TV audience see and watch the crowd. He takes his time. This is what it must have looked like in 1955 when his car came out of the Battery Tunnel in Brooklyn after the Dodgers won the series. 

Scully lets it sink in. It takes a while, but he returns to the microphone and tells us; "If a picture is worth a thousand words, you have just seen about a million," I never get tired of reliving that moment.

David McCullough was born in Pittsburgh. For anyone bad at geography that's in Western Pennsylvania. He was born in 1933 into a Scots/Irish household with multiple generations at the dinner table. It can be no surprise then that he took an interest in the famous Johnston Flood of 1889, in a city 56 miles east of Pittsburgh. Surely someone at his dinner table knew the news first hand; 2209 people died when the South Fork Dam burst.

As a youngster, he read about the dam bursting, but personally found the stories lacking in the ability to hold the reader. They didn't make such a cataclysmic event personal enough.

He entered Yale in 1951 that then boasted an English faculty that counted John Hersey, Robert Penn Warren and John O'Hara as members. His major was English literature, and he graduated in 1955. Imagine having those people on campus with office hours.

McCullough recalls lunchtime conversations with Thornton Wilder that helped him shape his first published work, "The Johnston Flood" published to positive reviews in 1968. He quits the day job at Sports Illustrated. His career has started.

His biographies on John Adams and Harry Truman won Pulitzers. I have to admit I once tried to read "1776" but got bogged down in the minutia and quit soon after starting. I guess I'm not good at reading  biographies or history. I never finished the book, but always enjoyed the sound of his voice when he narrated documentaries on PBS. The HBO series on John Adams was great. The Brooklyn Bridge story as well.

In his later years, McCullough had the gravitas of Walter Cronkite. You know if he said it, it was true.

The photo of McCullough above was in 2001, the year his biography of John Adams came out. I find it more than interesting that the photo was taken in the main reading room of the New York Public Library on 5th Avenue in New York.

The reading is room immense. I took a tour there once and the guide told us the ceiling is the size of a football field. That's about an acre.

If you look up at it long enough, you realize it holds the sounds of time. Just like the voices of Vin Scully and David McCullough.

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I'm Just Me

Even though I'm probably like hundreds of millions of other people who are not in any kind of legal trouble, I still get great assurance that no one is after me.

No one is stopping by in front of the house carrying a search warrant. The only vehicles to stop by today have been the newspaper delivery service, depositing three papers on the front lawn: a pink wrapper for The New York Post, a white wrapper for The Wall Street Journal, and a blue wrapper for The New York Times.

Additionally, since it's Tuesday and it's summer, the lawn people were here. And at some point before I awoke, the town garbage truck was here to take things away left at the curb. It's not recycling day, or yard waste day, just household trash. They thankfully come twice a week for that.

In other words. The F.B.I. did not stop by and raid the place looking for something incriminating. No one is after me, and when I read of all the people who someone is after, I take pride that I'm anonymous to those who might be trying to throw those in the slammer. Not that I've done anything to warrant that kind of attention, but that's the point. No one is after me. Like Frank Costello, I pay my taxes. 

The headline across the front page of today's print edition of The New York Times is not as large as the Monday evening online edition. It's above the fold, two-column spread in the upper right hand corner that tells us: TRUMP SAYS F.B.I. SEARCHED HOME IN SOUTH FLORIDA. The sub-heading goes: Focus Said to Be on White House Files—Sign that inquiries Are Widening.

Yeah, you think so?

The story jumps to page A13. There are no photos. Thus, we do not see a phalanx of F.B.I. agents in blue slickers with yellow F.B.I. lettering on the back pouring out of Suburban vehicles charging the place.

The Wall Street Journal carries the story on the front page, above the fold, centered between the left and right columns. They do have a photo, that carries the caption "Secret Service agents stand at the gate of Mar-a-Lago after FBI agents searched the home of former President Donald Trump." One agent is talking into his fist; the other agent is poised with an assault rifle as they flank a parked Suburban.

The headline beneath the large photo stretches four columns and goes: FBI Searches Trump's Home In Probe of Classified Records. No sub-heading 

[Note: The WSJ and The NYT style guides obviously differ. The WSJ does not insert commas after the initials in F.B.I. No big deal.]

Neither story carries any reporting on how many agents might have been searching the home. both papers report a quote from Mr. Trump, "They even broke into my safe." It's good to know they came prepared.

The WSJ reports that a Trump lawyer, Christina Robb was present during the raid, which started Monday morning and continued into the evening for nine hours. It is a big place.

The New York Post carried the front page headline: FEDS RAID MAR-A-LAGO. The sub-heading goes: Seize Documents, Open Trump's safe. Inserted after the word RAID is a photo of Mr. Trump in a pose that could be used for Mount Rushmore if there were even any thoughts of adding to it. Not likely.

The Trump news is at the bottom half of The New York Post front page, sharing space with a photo of Olivia- Newton-John who just passed away: So Long Sandy.  The Sandy reference is of course to her character in the musical 'Grease.'

The New York Post story is by far the more descriptive of the three papers. 

"A source who was at  Mar-A-Lago at he time of the FBI raid told The Post that it was 'like a scene of a Die Hard Movie' as armored cars came screeching up to the Palm Beach residence Monday morning 'and at least 100' FBI agents charged into Trump's home." Now we get the picture.

This is not a one-day story. Wednesday's New York Post carries a full front page headline/story: Exclusive: Inside the Trump raid. They even searched Melania's closet."

Oh-oh. The hope is that there was not an opportunistic agent who carried off Melania's Manolo Blahnik shoes or underwear for sale on the Dark Web. Or worse. Sniff, sniff We've all watched television.

Did The Donald, Melania, or the kids and grandkids have overdue library books from The Library of Congress? There have been reports over the years of zealous searches for overdue books.

The official statements goes that the search was for classified documents which would not be allowed to leave the White House. Time will tell all. Maybe.

I once attended a fraud conference umpteen years ago and the closing speaker was a retired F.B.I. agent who commented that he picked up the newspaper that morning and there were 17 accounts of people being sought or investigated for fraud that day. Sounded like a lot.

No matter the number, the point is a stroll through the news of any day will yield stories on any number of miscreants. 

And so it goes if you try and count the number of people who are being sought for something, whose lives are complicated enough that we're reading about them.

And that's not considering the fictional ones that populate movies, TV and books. A complicated life makes for a good plot. I often marvel at these stories how complicated these lives are, and mine is not. 

A former president is perhaps that most extreme example of someone in trouble, but for Mr. Trump, it's just another day at the office, wherever his office is these days. I have little in common with the former president other than we're about the same age, and were born in Queens, a New York City "outer borough" as the NYT loves to tell us. I have a pretty good head of hair as well. However, it's not orange.

I've been retired these days for 11 years now. No one is even looking for me to show up at work. Life is good, which coincidently is the name of the recent winner of The Whitney Stakes at Saratoga this past weekend. It's a good feeling, and he's a pretty good horse.

The Consolation Payout

Winning any kind of money at the racetrack is hard. Just ask anyone who goes there regularly. If they're honest they will tell you of their slumps as well as their successes.  But usually asking a horseplayer how they're doing is as good as accepting their answer as an unaudited financial statement. You should just listen.

Last week on the FoxSports show 'Racing Across America,' Anthony Stabile, (@TheBigAStabile) a NYRA handicapper, went on camera with a fellow from the crowd and asked him how does he snap a losing streak.

You only have to look and listen to Mr. Stabile to be fully aware of his horseplaying bona fides. You might take him for a typical de-and-doe guy from Brooklyn, but don't let that fool you. He knows how to properly use the word "penultimate."

On camera at Saratoga behind the stands, Mr. Stabile interviewed a fellow who proudly proclaimed he's been to 51 racetracks. The guy was easily in his 60s, perhaps early 70s, and had to be playing the horses a long time to achieve that number. I'm not sure there are currently 51 racetracks in operation in North America at this point. He could of course been overseas.

No matter, the guy wearing a Chicago Cubs insignia shirt offered some sage advice on trying to break a losing streak. Mr. Stabile admitted that after a few weeks into the Saratoga meet, he might not be doing so well. He's reached the right guy to interview.

Mr. Cub said he does something different on his way to the track. He might take a different route to the entrance. Anthony quickly acknowledged that he came to Saratoga that morning using a different route. 

Mr. Cub further explained in the old days when he did his betting at the windows, rather than now using an app, he would go to a different teller window if he had been buying tickets on losers at one window. I will freely admit that while I might have once done that myself, I now see little value in changing the SAM machine I might be using. However, I will unashamedly admit that after a few losing races I will now choose a different urinal to void my bladder.

These of course play into superstitions, a more psychic approach than a nuts and bolts approach to snapping a losing streak.

But Mr. Cub gave what perhaps was the best advice of all. Maybe stop playing all those Pick 3, 4, 5, 6 multi-leg races and get back to basics. Make win and exacta bets. Stop trying to put together a 50¢ multi-leg wager that with all the chosen permutations could easily run you $40 to $50, and just play it straight. After all, when I started playing the most exotic bet available was one Daily Double, a bet you had to have in 10 minutes before the post time for the first race. There weren't even exacta opportunities until the '70s.

I will gladly tell anyone who listens, that the only bets I make these days are win and exacta. I might now and then try a 50¢ Trifecta Box in a relatively short field, but that's as exotic as I get.

Mr. Stabile nodded at the advice to get back to basics, and said that maybe now he was going to be making across the board, or show bets. Winning does produce confidence.

The multi-leg payouts usually return a handsome return on the price of the ticket you put together—but you have to HIT it.  Most players put these tickets together by handicapping the choices they make. They usually don't rely on randomly selected numbers, like the lotteries that are immensely popular. That's the one aspect of playing the horse with any kind of bet that appeals to me: you make the selections.

My aversion to multi-leg bets is not just the final total you run up with even a modest number of boxed permutations, but that you might have in there a $28 winner on what ultimately becomes a losing ticket. Unless you play your choices singly as well as on multi-leg tickets, your $28 horse gives you no return.  You hit a longshot and don't collect a dime. Not for me.

Because multi-leg bets play out over time on the card, they are subject to being buffeted by scratches and surface changes. If you put one of these combinations together, and your choice for the first leg is scratched, you can cancel your ticket and start again. If you have time, and if you want to.

If a choice you made is scratched after your first leg you are assigned the post time favorite. If you already picked a selection that becomes a post time favorite, then you've selected the horse twice. This may improve your payout at the end if you hit. Multi-leg wagering can get confusing when there are scratches and surface changes.

A surface change that's announced after the first leg results in an ALL selection. This is a good thing for the bettor, because a key element of handicapping a turf race is who is good on turf. If because of a sudden downpour (and Saratoga has plenty of those) a race in one of your other than first sequence is changed from turf to dirt, then you in effect have made an ALL selection. No matter who wins, your ticket stays alive.

But consider this. Because you're not the only one affected by the change to ALL, all the people who played the multi-leg bet get a gimme. This in effect puts more combinations out there that will pay out, and therefore diminishes the final payout. More winners, less money individually distributed per winning ticket.

Now imagine that another turf case in your sequence comes off the turf and goes to the dirt. Now there are two ALL selections on two legs of the sequence, making even more winners if they complete the other legs as winners.

Just such a thing happened on Thursday last week, July 28, at Saratoga. Two races came off the turf to dirt, and two races were declared as ALL bets, creating a ton more winners. Since several of the sequences end after the last race, there are a lot of computed payouts. and when you consider there are Consolation Pick 6 payouts, pick any 5 of the six winners in the sequence, you get agate printed results that run several lines. Often there is a delay in posting the payout after the last race because there are so many calculations that need to be made by the computer.

I've written about before, but several years ago four of us in The Assembled put together four $2 Pick-6 tickets with single selections, costing each of us $2 for an $8 outlay.

It was Super Saturday, and the six races were all stakes races. We missed the first leg, running second, but hung in there and hit the next 5 races. We were in line for a Consolation Pick-6. 

Our winning picks were all favorites, so there were going to be many people who hit any of the 5 in the Pick-6 sequence. We anxiously awaited the payout result—$11! Split four ways, we each got back $2.75. Bobby G, refused to take his share. Even with that, we were hardly rich.

So, what was the Pick-6 payout with two ALL bets in its sequence on Thursday? $90.75 for a $1 bet. Only one horse in that sequence paid more than $10 ($11.20), and of course there were two freebie bets in there. Lots of winners from a $197,316 pool. There were probably a few people who might have come out ahead, albeit with a diminished payout.

What was the Consolation Pick-6, 5 out of 6 with the two ALL bets in there? A rather emaciated $2.45 for a $1 bet! Surely there were plenty of people who may have hit this, but failed to gain back their initial outlay.

It is very hard to make money at the racetrack.

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