About That Lost $142G: Summer at Saratoga

Journalistic convention would require that I begin this epic about last summer at Saratoga with the sad tale of how two horses' necks cost me at least $142,000.

But since that is a figure so ridiculous that I never even fantasized about winning that much, I'm going to back the story up a bit, rewinding past the far more-anguished cry I emitted over a far smaller sum going up in smoke in the shadow of the finish line, to begin at the beginning. Which, as it is every year for those who make the pilgrimage to the historic track in the Adirondack Mountains, was a Wednesday in late July that marked Opening Day for the six-week racing season.

Racing on a Treadmill

During the remainder of the year, major thoroughbred racing in New York is divided between Aqueduct and Belmont, and there is sometimes the sense of being on a treadmill. Until the mid-1970s, the racing season would end before Christmas and resume in March, and so back then, Opening Day at Aqueduct was an event, with blue-collar workers and college students alike coming down with a one-day illness known as the Big A Flu that rendered them absent from their normal posts.

A RUN FOR YOUR MONEY: Saratoga Race Course is unlike any other track, with an atmosphere that owes much to its past and the wide mix of people who make it a vacation stop, as well as the high quality of the competition among both the horses and their two-legged friends.

The grandeur of Belmont Park presents a distinct contrast to Aqueduct's nondescript functionality, but except on a few big racing days, there seems little difference in the size or the character of the crowds, except in Belmont's backyard, away from the actual racing.

Saratoga offers a different atmosphere, one that is closer to a state of mind. For six weeks it becomes a racing town in ways that the areas surrounding the downstate tracks aren't; the only obvious connection the local communities in South Ozone Park and Elmont have to their operations seems to come from nearby bars with names like The Finish Line and the Right Track Inn.

Saratoga is a place where playing the horses seems socially respectable rather than vaguely (or not so vaguely) disreputable. People at the track seem happier to be there, including many who aren't knocking them dead at the betting windows and the jockeys, who walk directly past the crowds on their way from the track back to their quarters with limited fear (they are, after all, escorted by security personnel) of damage being done to their bodies or their psyches by bettors unhappy about an unsatisfactory result in the race just concluded. They aren't left exposed this way at Aqueduct or Belmont; draw your own conclusions.

The town retains some of its raffish origins, when much of the big gambling was done in illegal casinos after the races had ended for the day, with restaurants today named for the legends of that era like Diamond Jim Brady and Lillian Russell. The music of choice at the track is Dixieland jazz, which also reaches well back into the past and invites those in attendance to do the same.

For me, that starts with the trip upstate, when Kanye and Maroon 5 and Outkast are joined on the car's CD player by Ellington and Armstrong and Leonard Bernstein conducting Aaron Copland.

Blue Skies and Sunsets Heading Up

While too many drives back home are accompanied by torrential rains that seemed timed to coincide with my trips upstate, the ride up is virtually always under blue skies or azure sunsets, with the only potential hazard arising if I can't get off the Taconic Parkway by the time the deer are wandering on.

Coming up the night before leaves you with just a short trip to the track, and an arrival early enough to be among those coming through the gates when they open two hours before the races, the better to take in the surroundings and, more importantly, get the early scratches from the Racing Secretary's office, a place I never visit downstate.

My entrance there last year brought an early encounter with John the Observer, who does exactly that for the pre-eminent racing data operation in the country, and a man whose screen name is Best-Bet Bob. Where John is a formidable horseplayer, Best-Bet Bob is a more-typical lifer whose stories of tough beats are hard to equal. I once missed out on a $1,200 Pick Six because I decided to be clever and bet against Afleet Alex — who would later win the Preakness and Belmont Stakes — at 2-5 odds, only to have my horse lose to him in the last stride of a 2-year-old stakes race at Saratoga. Best-Bet Bob blows away that tale of a wiseguy move gone asunder with his story of how he once failed to hit a $55,000 Pick Six because he threw out In Excess, who at that time in the early 1990s was the best horse in the country.

John, knowing I'm up just for Opening Day, asks whether I'll be back that weekend, and I tell him I'm going to miss Saturday's races because of a friend's wedding on Long Island.

He raises an eyebrow and asks, "Are you sure he's your friend?"

Before I can reply that the friend is a woman and probably oblivious to Saratoga's stakes calendar, Best-Bet Bob reels off a litany of family events he has blown off over the years because there is only one place to be when Saratoga is open.

I'm sitting a few rows above them in the clubhouse, and prior to the sixth race, I venture downstairs and note that the rail horse, Again and Again, while seemingly slightly slower than the other prime contenders, is going off at far more generous odds than they are, at 16-1. John nods in agreement, and I tell them I wound up playing him in exactas with the faster-looking horses.

He tells me that he's friendly with the exercise rider for one of those horses, Calculator, who happens to be the only one in the barn that the trainer doesn't expect to run well at Saratoga.

The 'Bossman is Lame' Story

It's too late for me to reconsider my bets, unless I wanted to cancel the wagers with that horse and risk regretting it later, so I tell him my Bossman Lobell story.

Bossman Lobell was a pacer at Roosevelt Raceway back in the early 1970s, who one night was racing against a horse named Public Affair that a friend of mine used to get tips on. We were in our seats about 15 minutes before the race when my friend stopped by and told us he'd just been sitting in a box with a trainer who at that moment was without a license because track management suspected him of race-fixing. The trainer, according to my friend, had told him "the Bossman is lame."

I took this as reason not to use the horse for second in exacta bets with Public Affair; my friends Russell and Mark, smelling larceny, figured we were getting a bad tip from a crook and made him a prime horse in their exacta combinations. As it turned out, Bossman Lobell took the lead and held it until the stretch, when Public Affair surged by him to win, but no other horse passed him and my friends each collected $86 on the exacta while I tore up my tickets.

The Names May Change ...

In this case, two of the favorites wound up cooking each other in a speed duel, which should have set up the race for Calculator. As he slowly moved past them, Again and Again came flying from back in the pack to win easily, with Calculator advancing just enough to finish second, triggering an exacta payoff of $228.50.

When John turned and pointed at me, I shrugged and yelled, "The Bossman was lame again."

Things proceeded nicely from there, until the final race of the day, when I just needed the 5-2 favorite to win to collect more than $7,000 — more than I've ever won in a day at the races — in Pick 3 and Pick 4 bets. Turning for home, my horse pulled up alongside the longshot leader, but he couldn't quite go by, and as they got closer to the finish line it became obvious he was going to fall just short. Another horse came flying late to dead-heat for win, with my horse a head behind them in third, but it still had been a profitable day, with no sign of the heartache to come.

A week later, on the first Wednesday in August, I made the trip north with my mom, normally my opening-day companion but in that case a late scratch because of a sore throat. This year's opener marked her 10th trip to Saratoga, but she still gets exactas and daily doubles mixed up and has a tendency to start rooting for her horses too early in the race. It doesn't matter to her; Mom bets small, says each overnight trip feels like a vacation, and just enjoys the experience regardless of whether she wins or loses.

Victory Most Foul

I tend to be a little less of a stop-and-smell-the-roses type if my luck seems to have gone south, as it does in the fourth race, when two of my horses arrive at the wire together. I'm all set to collect nearly $800 on an exacta bet combining them when there is an announcement that the stewards are looking at the stretch run for a possible foul.

The head-on replay shows the second-place horse bothering the other horse I had used in the exactas as they neared the finish. This would not have been a problem if that other horse had wound up third, since I would have made just about the same profit if their positions were reversed and also collected on a triple bet. Unfortunately, my other horse had been passed right at the wire by the betting favorite, who I had thought myself wise to disregard, and so when they disqualified my second-place finisher, he was placed fourth, with the favorite moved up to second and my winnings snatched from my grasp.

By the time the feature race rolled around, I had recouped and was slightly ahead for the day, and I made a win bet on a 7-2 shot named Amansara and used her on top of two longshots in the exacta. One of the longshots, A True Pussycat, who was 13-1, took the lead turning for home while Amansara found room on the inside and rallied strongly to poke her head in front a sixteenth of a mile from the finish. No one else was gaining, and visions of making more than $2,000 on my $20 exacta bet began dancing in my head and I hooted and hollered.

An Unfortunate Turn of Events

And then ... disaster. A mare named Fantastic Shirl, who had been trapped behind a group of horses, suddenly was offered a glimmer of daylight. Her rider, John Velazquez, was normally one of the best in the country, but several recent spills in which he had been involved seemed to have temporarily diminished his skills and he wound up struggling for most of the meeting.

In this race, however, Mr. Velazquez mustered his old flair and drove Fantastic Shirl through a narrow path between horses and she was suddenly clear and flying. Fifty years from the wire, I still looked home free, but she was moving so fast that in the final few strides she soared past my horses while a loud cry of "Noooo!" echoed through the stands. The most disturbing thing about this howl was that it came from me.

My mother, however, has a friend named Shirley, and so she had placed her $2 to win on Fantastic Shirl. She was both thrilled at her victory and chagrined at how much it seemed to have unhinged me. She offered to split her winnings with me, leading me to sigh at the notion that half of an $11 payoff could be consolation for the money that had just flown away.

It wasn't so much the loss as the fact that it had come after I was sure the race was in the bag. But the first time I took my mom to Saratoga 10 years earlier, three-eighths of a mile into a mile turf race she lamented that I had talked her out of betting another horse whose name she liked after he took the early lead. When he surrendered it in mid-stretch to the two horses I had bet for her, I turned to her and said, not as gently as I probably should have, "They don't pay off at the fifth-eighths pole, Mom." This race had been a reminder to me that they don't pay off 50 yards from the wire, either.

Out With The Homeowner

Eleven days later, a Sunday afternoon, here I was again, with my wife and 13-year-old son, whom the Mrs. refers to as The Homeowner. It wasn't a high-intensity day, and I had handicapped the racing card the night before not in the relative peace of our motel room but outside a Chinese restaurant and inside a Lake George amusement area where The Homeowner alternated between go-kart races and laser tag.

It started as a fairly routine day at Saratoga, but the 5th race was the start of the Pick Six, and no one had hit the wager the day before, creating a large carryover that inspired bettors to throw more than three times as much money into the pot as was already there. That created a pool of nearly $600,000.

I've never been inclined to risk a lot of money chasing the Pick Six, and so, carryover or no, I'm playing in my normal range, which in this case amounts to a $32 investment.

The first leg of the Pick 6 is one of those delightful Saratoga imponderables: of the 10 2-year-old fillies entered, eight of them are making their first starts, and to my mind anyway, five of those are well-bred enough and training smoothly enough to have a shot. I'm only planning to use two of them in my Pick 6 ticket, however.

A Flyer on 'Success'

One is a horse named Raw Silk who was purchased for $600,000 by a top stable and is made the 5-2 favorite; the other is a cheaper, less-fashionably bred horse named Wish Me Success whose trainer is not good with first-time starters but very good with 2-year-old fillies and has put the best rider in the country, Garrett Gomez, on him.

Because he is 12-1, I make a win bet on Wish Me Success and use him in exacta boxes with the other four horses I think have a chance. I briefly consider using him on top of them in a $1 triple key as well, but then decide it's not worth the extra $12 investment in a mystery race.

Wish Me Success breaks poorly, but the rest of the field runs too fast early, and by the time they turn for home she is in striking range. Mr. Gomez swoops by with her, and she is followed under the wire by three of my other horses. The triple pays more than $3,000, half of which I could have collected if I would have sprung for that measly $12, but the $26.60 win payoff and the $296.50 exacta keep me from inflicting too much of a mental thrashing upon myself.

In the sixth race, I have just one bet on my Pick Six ticket, a two-horse entry that goes off at 3-1. My horses finish 1-2 and I add to my winnings, but with four legs still to go, I'm not getting too excited yet.

The seventh race is a closely-contested affair, with six of the 10 horses having some kind of chance in my opinion. I've used just two of them, an 8-1 shot named Princess Westly, and a 5-1 filly named Final Refrain. I have both of them in Pick 3s as well, each of which would give me a payoff of more than $1,400 if they win.

The Kid Takes a Flyer

The Homeowner, who has some money coming to him from bets I made when he pinch-hit for Mom and accompanied me to Opening Day, asks if he can make a bet picking his own numbers rather than having me do it for him. I tell him he can, and he asks for two combinations, one using Final Refrain on top of Elusive Melody, the other using the 5-2 favorite, Crystal Minuet, with a 12-1 shot named Quiet Alice.

For much of the race, my two horses are running last and next to last, with Crystal Minuet and Quiet Alice up among the leaders, but when the field turns into the stretch, the rider of Final Refrain, Julien Leparoux, guides her off the rail and she begins a strong rally. At the sixteenth pole, I am sure she is going to pass all three horses still in front of her and win, but then she stops gaining as quickly, and at the wire, she is a neck behind Quiet Alice, who is a neck behind Crystal Minuet.

The Homeowner, who has been lustily shouting his horses' numbers — ''C'mon 10-5, c'mon 10-5!" — turns to me and says, "I won." And so he did, hitting an exacta that paid $79. He was oblivious to the fact that his two horses had narrowly cost me a lot more on the race, and a great deal more than that later, as it would turn out, but then, there is a reason that my wife refers to our dog as "the one grateful child."

There is nothing terribly dramatic about the 8th race: one of my two horses, Quota, wins as the 9-5 favorite, while the other one, a 5-2 second choice, finishes out of the money.

One From Column B

The ninth race is the featured one, the West Point Handicap, and one of my two horses there is the 2-1 favorite, Dave. The other one I came up with the night before outside the Chinese restaurant — a horse named Classic Pack who had run a very fast race while finishing third two months earlier, and had a chance to win here if he could repeat that effort. Since a win at Saratoga a year earlier, he had lost seven straight races, which was why he was being sent off at 13-1.

But while Dave got trapped inside and didn't get rolling until it was too late to run better than fourth, Classic Pack rallied wide into the stretch and won the race going away.

A longshot at the start of the Pick 6 had been enough to bust out a large segment of the bettors; this second horse paying more than $25 was enough to take out many of the other big gamblers who had wagered thousands chasing the carryover. Even so, I was surprised when the payouts were posted for the Pick 6 before the 10th race. The smallest possible payoff, with the 2-1 favorite, New York Dixie, ridden by Mr. Gomez, was $142,000. Since he was the one horse I had used in the last race, that meant if I hadn't lost the seventh race by those two fiendish necks, I'd stand to collect that much if he won; maybe more, since Final Refrain had gone off twice the price of Crystal Minuet and was less likely to have been included in bettors' combinations.

I ran into my friend Chuck, who comes to Saratoga for the entire meeting, and told him what had happened as a kind of half-brag, half-lament. If I had waited until the 9th race to get knocked out of the Pick 6 by two necks, I said, I'd probably be hyperventilating right now; instead, I'd put my regrets on hold and try to root Mr. Gomez home so I could collect on live daily double and Pick 3 tickets, as well as a Pick 5 consolation payout.

'Who Says You're Not Lucky?"

"See," Chuck replied, "who says you're not lucky?"

A 35-1 shot named Optimistic Jordan took the early lead and held it turning for home, when Mr. Gomez brought New York Dixie alongside to challenge. I figured he would go right by, but Optimistic Jordan's jockey, the promising young Channing Hill, got his filly to fight back, and they dueled down to the wire.

The pessimist in me says that if I really stood to win $142,000, Optimistic Jordan would have beaten my horse by a nose. Instead, with just a couple thousand dollars in the balance, Mr. Gomez got New York Dixie's nose in front. My two Pick 5 tickets each paid $602, capping a nice day but not an historic one. On the other hand, I had a story to rival Best-Bet Bob's: I had gotten beaten out of $142,000 by not using a 5-2 favorite in my combinations.

The Homeowner Reconsiders

My wife had already gone to get the car out of the lot off Potato Chip Lane, the better for us to get moving toward the Thruway for the drive home. As I walked out of the track with The Homeowner, I asked him, "So, if you knew that if my horse had beaten your 10 and 5 I would have gotten $142,000, would you have rooted for me instead?"

The Homeowner shrugged his shoulders and said, "Well, what was in it for me?" "Whaddaymean?" I said. "Well," he replied, "I got $79."

"Well," I told him, "if I made $142,000, you gotta figure I would've given you at least three or four hundred."

"Oh," he said. "Well, if I'd known that, I would've rooted for you."

Which is why, contrary to Best-Bet Bob's philosophy, it isn't always the right policy to shun family and friends in favor of Saratoga. Not even the ones (you too, Mom) who bet against you.

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