The main reasons race lovers go to the track are winning money, excitement and maybe camaraderie. It’s a wonderful escape from the everyday and is actually one of the few sports today where the fans are a part of the game. Horse racing at a race track or a simulcast location is not, by any means, passive. In fact, my handicapping service website is designed to help such race goers relieve some of the pressure in preparing their bets.

Back before simulcast came onto the scene bettors had one track and 30 minutes to figure a winner of one race with about 8 horses. It was relaxing and serene. Now, for the active bettor however, there are 3 to 7 tracks going at once and information on 25 to 100 horses every half hour to decipher and calculate and enumerate and strategize bets with exactas, trifectas, supers and pick 3,4,6’s, part wheels, keys… whew!…. well, to say the least it’s mind boggling but, oh, so much fun.

It’s a mental contest between bettor and fellow bettors and horses, jockeys and trainers. So concentration is very important and the disruption of focus can cause misjudgments, oversight and eventually the loss of funds. The following is a short list of people you will meet at the track or OTB that you must avoid and ignore at all cost in order to maintain concentration:

The Scooter…. This guy takes a seat about 3 chairs down and after about 2 races has moved to within an arms length. Do NOT make eye contact! In fact, next time you sit down angle your chair away from him in hopes that he’ll get the message.

The Question Man…. This is not the guy who asks, “Is this the end of the betting line?” No, it’s the guy who asks, “Whatta ya think of the 3 in the 7th?” or “Whatta ya got in the 5th?” (I like to say, “I got Evan Williams in the 5th” , and watch as he goes off trying to find it in the program). Always look too busy for idle chit chat and never answer horse questions seriously.

The Stander…. This is the guy that will stand up for hours at a time and unfortunately and many times in the middle of the aisle or in front of you as you watch the big screen. Here are a couple of hints. When standing in your way, just walk over them, bump their arm and remember to say excuse me, sir. When he stands in front of you to watch the race, let out a cough that would attract a Canadian goose. They usually clear your vision quickly.

The Wheeler Hog…. You’ve got “0” flashing next to the MTP (Minutes To Post) and you know you’ve got maybe 90 seconds to get your $20 Win bet in the books. Then you hear the conversation in front of you,”…and a $1 part-wheel tri 2458 over the 123458 over All” – “Sorry sir the 4 is scratched” – “Is this Aqueduct” – “Yes, sir.” – “OK, then take an exacta box with the 2458.” – “But sir, the 4 is still scratched.”….. When you hear something like this you have three things to do, go to another window if one is open, go to an automated teller if one is available or go to the concession stand and order a hot dog with chili, cheese, mustard and slaw if they have it. And hope that the horse you missed out on falters down the stretch to finish 7th.

If you are a serious bettor or a serious beginner, then, no matter what the type of character you may cross at the races, remember to always stay focused as if you are wearing blinkers. Be cordial and considerate at all times and be a good loser and a better bettor.

Betting the horse with the funny or unusual name can be a fun way to play the horses – but that is merely “play”. There is a more serious method of betting on just the name and that is betting the “omen”. The “omen bet” is emotional, personal and somewhat supernatural.

It’s one thing to bet a horse with a name of a favorite relative, or a town you lived in or a cat you once knew. If you bet every name that was familiar in your past – you wouldn’t have enough money to keep up with them all.  Moreover, the longer you live, the more of these bets you’ll be placing.

However, an “omen bet” goes one step further and almost into another dimension as it becomes a message from beyond. And, the limited knowledge of the beyond that I possess is that “they” (whoever they may be) know more than we do and that “they” are trying to give us a sign or clue of some kind from the never never land.

The basics of an omen bet, therefore, is two parts.  The name of the familiar and something familiar with the familiar.

For example, when you see on the program a horse with the name “Ted” and you had an Uncle Ted, that should make you remember that person (if it’s someone special in your life, of course).  But, in this example the horse’s name is Joke King Ted and your Uncle always had a new joke whenever he came around – there’s your “omen bet”.

Remember that this bet is personal and only YOU or someone that experienced the same will see the importance. If you put $10 to win on Nancy Pants and your sister, Nancy, always wore colorful bell bottoms and she’s going off at 30-1 don’t be surprised to get a funny look from the teller or the techno handicapper standing in the line next to you. They aren’t getting the same vibe from another world like you are about this horse who, by the way, is moving up in class, had to be vanned off a time or two recently and his best finish in his last 8 races was 7th.

There’s a theory that those in the hereafter give us signs all the time but we have to be open to those signs to be able to see them. So, keep an open mind and if a name on the program jumps out at you, it might be someone or something from your past giving you a tip from out of this world. Or, you could just be throwing your money away – only the shadows of the unknown will know for sure.

No, I’m not talking about polo shirts or souvenirs and this is not about the price of hot dogs or nachos. It’s a betting angle at your favorite race track.

Have you ever noticed a horse drop in class to a level that you think is a misprint? Well, depending on when you see that drop it could mean a huge opportunity. For example, a maiden, running against $48,000 maiden claimers and finishing mid-pack suddenly is entered in a $25,000 maiden claimer should get the red flags flying. Why would an owner risk losing his horse to a claim in this instance?

One reason may be he noticed something wrong during a workout or around the barn and is dumping the horse onto someone else and cutting his losses. Hey, it’s business.

But, there is another reason why this happens and that’s where the advantage to the bettor comes in to play. You see, in accounting, a stable or barn full of horses is considered “inventory”, and, on a tax return for a business, such inventory is taxable. Owners, therefore, in an attempt to “thin the herd” so to speak, clean out their inventory to benefit the bottom tax line. Some of these horses are sold outright but there’s another great way of selling off their inventory…. claiming races.

Drop the horse in claiming value to sell, pick up the win purse and get the horse off your inventory. It’s a possible horseman’s trifecta. So, for the bettor, how do we know the difference between dumping an unhealthy animal or just lowering the inventory?

The “inventory sale” usually happens at the following times:

End of Meet
When the meet comes to an end and the owner doesn’t plan on shipping the horse to another track or to another state, then sometimes it is financially smarter to sell the animal instead of spending money on feed, vet and miscellaneous costs for 6 to 8 months till the next season starts. Look for this to happen in the last couple of weeks of a meet.

End of Year
Great time to get the horse off the inventory and get a much needed tax break just before the last day of the year. Most retail businesses build up inventory for Christmas but use January to sell off the excess inventory to avoid a tax hit. And they use January 31st as the last day of the their business year. But in the racing business, the year end most commonly is the last day of December.

So watch for the huge drop in class and then consult the area track schedules and the calendar. You may be surprised how much you can make on a good ol’ fashion “close out sale”!

The sport of horse racing is shrinking every day.  Its fan base is drying up, losing 4 percent a year to death and disinterest.

There are fewer horses being bred, born or raced and, when they do run, they run less. Racetracks, particularly those without expanded gambling to fatten purses, are scrambling to attract enough entries to put together a “full field.”

Bettors, who fuel the sport through pari-mutuel wagering, prefer races with more horses. These days, they are betting much less, largely because of the economic downturn.  And if the industry doesn’t act now, the situation could be much much worse by 2020.  To those in the racing and breeding businesses, this is no surprise.

To get a feel for the depth of the problem, The Jockey Club commissioned a new, in-depth evaluation from McKinsey & Co. that was unveiled Aug. 14 with several suggestions for how tracks and others in the horse industry can fight back.  The study found that racing is not attracting new fans.

Betting, fans said, is too complicated and too hard to figure out, especially on account-wagering Web sites.  Horse racing is the only legal online betting, but the industry has been too slow to leverage Web tools.  Less than 1 percent told Jockey Club consumer researchers that their first involvement with the sport came through online sources. Most, 53.7 percent, got into racing because a friend or relative took them to the track as an adult.

Duncan Taylor, president and CEO of Taylor Made Sales Agency, said racing has blown a big online opportunity.  “Our biggest competitor is the lottery. Low bet, long odds but big payoff,” he said.  Racing needs something like that, a bet that people can make without a graduate degree in handicapping, he said.

Tracks such as Keeneland aren’t waiting for The Jockey Club to come up with the answer. The Lexington track announced Thursday it had worked out a deal with NBC and the Versus cable sports network to televise four days of the fall meet in October.  “There’s some things already in development,” said W.B. Rogers Beasley, Keeneland director of racing. “We have a host of social media coming down the line.”  James Gagliano, Jockey Club president and chief operating officer, said last week that The Jockey Club was developing efforts, including TV and social media, aimed at new fans.

Racing had an all-time low of about 43 hours of national coverage, prior to Keeneland’s announcement of four more hours, this year compared with 175 hours in 2003.  The Jockey Club said it will commit $10 million during the next five years to put together a TV package of new coverage of racing, and it plans to build a free-to-play social media game around that.  In the days after that announcement, Gagliano said, they have been pitched at least a dozen good ideas for reality shows, as well as games.

A simple bet with a “super jackpot” is the direction they are heading, first with a free-to-play game that offers great prizes and builds rooting interests.  Then, probably after the first year, new fans can be transitioned to online gambling, he said.  “What a tremendous opportunity that is,” he said.

But Gagliano acknowledged that racing must do more to address problems such as betting integrity and racehorse welfare that drive away new and old fans. Over and over, polls have shown fans and horseplayers think the drug rules are too lax.  “We think there’s a whole host of integrity issues that we need to confront,” he said. “I don’t think it’s as stark as ‘if we don’t get rid of Lasix, we won’t get new fans.’ ”  But, clearly, fan perception is a big part of the reason The Jockey Club and other industry groups are calling for phasing out all race-day medication, including anti-bleeder drugs such as furosemide, also known as Lasix. But that hasn’t been a popular move with many owners and trainers, who say horses need anti-bleeders because they suffer from exercise-induced pulmonary hemorrhage. About 95 percent of the horses running in U.S. Thoroughbred races get a shot of the drug four hours before a race.

“You know, if that’s their concern and they know Lasix is good for a horse, shame on them,” Mike Repole, owner of Uncle Mo and Stay Thirsty, said recently. “I would hope it’s not a perception thing and that it’s a reality thing. But everything I hear from trainers to vets supports it. It’s like no one is for this except the good old boys, and they’re the guys who have been killing the sport for the last 10 to 15 years. It’s time for them to step aside.”

Another of McKinsey’s recommendations — eliminating some races or moving dates around — also has some tracks wary. The Jockey Club is working on a predictive program that could help tracks figure out the best placement of races but won’t go beyond that.  “We’re not calling for tracks to close or elimination of race days,” Gagliano said. “But there’s a smaller foal crop, and at some point we’re going to have to have fewer races. Economically, there’s a lot of races that don’t pay for themselves.”

The McKinsey study found that top-level races, such as graded stakes, still attract bettors and fans. But the vast majority of bread-and-butter races don’t.  The study also found that moving races around, sometimes by just a few minutes to give bettors more time, can make a big difference in handle.  Gagliano said more drastic action might be needed in some cases. “We run a lot of our race days when we think it’s the best opportunity, which used to be live-race attendance,” he said. “But most wagering in the U.S. now is made off-course.”

Tracks run the biggest race of the day, the feature, as the next-to-last race, he said. “That’s no longer valid.”  If some tracks schedule their feature for earlier in the card, it could improve handle significantly, he said.  Even minor adjustments could be lucrative: In 2009, three big spring races were held on the same day at Keeneland, Oaklawn and Aqueduct within a half-hour. If those had been spread out even 15 minutes more, McKinsey estimated, they could have drawn $4 million more in handle.

Big days prove that racing can still draw a crowd when it does things right. From 2003, the peak, to 2010, overall handle fell by 37 percent. But in the past 10 years, handle on Grade I and Grade II stakes races is up 23 percent.  Attendance, betting and TV ratings are still strong on the best days, such as the Kentucky Derby and Breeders’ Cup.

Tracks such as Churchill Downs have been forced, through the lack of expanded gambling, to find ways to get new fans in anyway. And they’ve done it, creating special “Downs After Dark” racing events that draw thousands and pumping up handle considerably, proof that when racing does things right, it still has legs.

When researching an article about the question of weight in horse racing I came across an article on the subject that has been hit upon in the movie “Seabiscuit” and on the TV series “Jockey’s”. They all raise questions and concerns about the health of our nations jockeys. I hope you will find the article, which was written 7 years ago as compelling as I did………

Sunday, April 25, 2004

Horse racing’s dirty little secret
Jockeys starve, sweat and purge – then risk their lives on the track

By Neil Schmidt
The Cincinnati Enquirer

LOUISVILLE – Shane Sellers paused outside the washroom stalls in the jockeys room of Churchill Downs racetrack. “I want you to understand, this is reality,” he said.

He then opened the last stall on the right. Inside sits what jockeys call a heaving bowl, a large square basin designed to catch the vomit many riders regularly discharge to make weight requirements.

Such bowls are installed at a majority of tracks nationwide, including River Downs and Turfway Park, and are symbolic of horse racing’s dirty little secret: Jockeys regularly induce vomiting, sit for extended times in steaming saunas and use diuretics, laxatives and stimulants.

They do so, risking an assortment of health problems, to weigh in the range of 110 pounds. Then they drag their weakened bodies onto 1,200-pound animals going 35 mph and hope they don’t get trampled. As independent contractors, they have no job security and most can’t afford health insurance.

It’s a steep price to pay for the chance to reach the winner’s circle.

“I wouldn’t wish this job on nobody,” Hebron jockey Perry Ouzts said. “The uncertainty’s there every day – if you’re going to make a living at it.”

Approaching Saturday’s 130th running of the Kentucky Derby, it’s a testy time in the jockey world. A group of riders wants new rules allowing them to ride at higher weights and is lobbying for better pay and health coverage.

Things could boil over with the Monday premiere of HBO’s documentary, Jockey.

Sellers’ tour of the Churchill washroom is part of the film, which depicts the hardships jockeys face in their business and lifestyle.

Sellers and most of his fellow riders hope the documentary educates the public about what’s demanded of them, particularly in meeting weight standards they consider outdated.

Retired jockey Randy Romero, who awaits liver and kidney transplants necessitated in part by dangerous weight-loss practices, also stars in the HBO film.

Romero, now 46, said he was vomiting five to six times a day at the end of his career in the late 1990s. He had been bulimic since he was a 9-year-old riding in Louisiana.

“The bulimia is as bad as being a cocaine addict,” he said.

“It works on your nervous system. It works on your mind. … I put 150 percent into (riding), but it got me into the position I’m in now.”

‘Violating your body’

Every track sets weight requirements for each race, depending on the horse’s age, sex and skill level and the race’s distance. Yet the predominant weight scale remains largely unchanged from the original outline set in 1858, when humans were smaller. The weights horses carry generally range from 112 to 126 pounds. That figure includes the jockey plus about 7 pounds of gear.

A group of seven jockeys who recently screened Jockey for reporters estimated that 90 percent of all jockeys reduce their weight daily to ride.

In a 1995 study by the Chicago Rehabilitation Institute, 69 percent of riders said they skipped meals; 34 percent used diuretics; 67 percent sweated off pounds in the sauna; 30 percent “flipped,” the term for self-induced vomiting, and 14 percent took laxatives.

“You feel like you’re violating your body,” said Steve Cauthen, the Walton, Ky., native who won the Triple Crown in 1978 aboard Affirmed.

“You wring it out every day. Then you drink a glass of water and you’ve got to wring it out again.”

Some jockeys cut up to 10 pounds in a day, largely through marathon sessions in the sauna. Many use laxatives to clean out their system or Lasix, a diuretic that causes excessive urination.

Many who flip will eat constantly, easing their hunger for a few minutes before expelling the food. They trigger their gag reflex by sticking a finger down their throat, and many who do that over a number of years don’t even need the finger.

“I could just lean over, and out it’d come,” Sellers said.

His heart gave out

The health risks associated with jockeys’ methods of dieting are numerous.

With starvation, jockeys can suffer the thinning bones of osteoporosis, blood disorders, kidney and nerve damage, abnormal heart rhythms, fainting spells, muscle weakness and cramps. In extreme cases, the stomach can develop lacerations and the esophagus can rupture.

Consistent vomiting can also result in tooth decay, hair loss, electrolyte imbalancesand, in extreme cases, organ failure. Dehydration can cause heat exhaustion.

In 2000, 29-year-old jockey Chris McKenzie died in Pennsylvania of a heart arrhythmia after his potassium levels plummeted as a result of dieting. Dr. Dana Powell, the track physician at Penn National Race Course, was aware McKenzie was badly abusing his body and had tried unsuccessfully to have him banned from riding.

In 1991, Australian jockey Peter Cook suffered a heart attack, which Supreme Court judges ruled was brought on by use of a racetrack’s sauna. Cook won $840,841 in a lawsuit, and now jockeys in Australia are required to sign a paper saying they will use the saunas only in a safe manner.

“This whole issue of weight goes beyond flipping,” said Dr. Laurie Humphries, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Kentucky specializing in eating disorders. “One of the issues is the use of cocaine to reduce appetite and increase energy, and other behaviors jockeys use that involve (drugs) to try to lower their body weight.”

Cocaine and amphetamines are appetite suppressants that can become addictive.

The coroner’s report on two-time Kentucky Derby winner Chris Antley concluded his 2000 death was caused by an accidental overdose. Police found four drugs in his body, including methamphetamine and Clobenzorex, an amphetamine precursor.

Clobenzorex can’t be sold legally in the United States; it has been compared to Redux, the controversial weight-loss drug known as “fen-phen” that was outlawed in September 1997.

Florence jockey Rhonda Collins is 5-7 and weighs 110 pounds. In a jockey’s first season, the jockey is allowed to ride at lower weights to compensate for inexperience. Torturing herself that year to weigh 103 drove Collins to acquire a prescription for fen-phen, when it was still legal.

“I have to say, it worked,” said Collins, who said she used it just six weeks. “Before that, I ate three meals a week and lived on coffee. I smoked because it reduced hunger.

“It’s such a hard sport mentally and physically. It’s why you see alcoholism and drugs (in racing). You see (jockeys) turning to things like that. They’re out of control; they need a break.”

Cauthen moved overseas a year after his Triple Crown, in part because the weights were a few pounds higher, and eventually retired after tiring of battling his weight. He later was treated for alcoholism, which some experts theorize can be a companion to anorexia.

Some experts believe the majority of jockeys don’t suffer long-term problems as a result of reducing.

Romero admits his liver, stricken with Hepatitis C, might have become diseased from a blood transfusion received in 1983, and that his kidneys might be failing because of the numerous anti-inflammatory medications he said he took after 23 surgeries.

“We need to be careful that we don’t get hysterical about the health hazards that many are talking about,” said J. David Richardson, a surgeon in Louisville who has treated jockeys.

“For thin-statured people, the notion that you get severe health problems from dieting, I haven’t seen a lot of that.”

Should weight be raised?

Each state’s racing commission sets its own weight standards. The minimum weight for nearly all races in many jurisdictions is 116 pounds. The Jockeys’ Guild is pushing for a minimum weight of 118, including making a formal proposal last month in California, a key racing state.

It carried the proposal further by saying jockeys should be required to maintain 5 percent body fat, similar to what the governing bodies for cyclists and gymnasts require. Current jockeys would be exempt.

“There may be a handful of trainers out there that make an argument about this, but no owners or racetracks or commissions are … giving us resistance,” said Albert Fiss, the guild’s vice president.

Two Hall of Famers, trainer D. Wayne Lukas and jockey Pat Day, are outspoken opponents of a weight increase.

Lukas didn’t return phone messages for this story but has said previously, “If you put more weight on (horses), you’ll have … problems. Modern diets are great. Tell (jockeys) to get on one. If they’re too big to make weight, they should do something else.”

Jockeys will counter that the weight demands are so abnormal that even well-meaning efforts go awry – such as 2003 Derby winner Jose Santos detailing how his weight rose when he took vitamins.

Day claims that raising weights will only encourage “overweight” would-be riders to try to cut weight, creating their own health issues.

As for the horse: What danger would extra weight create?

Dr. Stephen Wickler, professor of Animal and Veterinary Science at California Polytechnic Pomona, has estimated that a 5-pound increase in weight would increase force on a horse’s limbs by 0.5 percent.

Said Larry Bramlage, an orthopedic surgeon at the Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington: “The implications for the horse are minimal.”

Horses that race in Europe have long carried significantly more weight than their American counterparts. Critics dismiss the comparison, saying nearly all of European racing is done on grass (easier on a horse’s legs than dirt racing) and the horses don’t run as much.

A code of silence

Jockeys historically have had little leverage in their sport. They generally don’t make much money if their horse doesn’t win, place or show.

“If there are 20 horses in the Kentucky Derby, 17 of us are going to ride that race for $56 after paying your agent, valet and Uncle Sam,” Sellers said.

Darrell Haire, a member’s representative for the Jockey’s Guild, said that of the nearly 1,900 licensed riders in the United States, “You take out the top 100, and the average salary (of everyone else) is about $24,000.”

Most jockeys keep a code of silence about their hardships. Admitting weight struggles could cost them business.

They don’t know from day to day how many trainers will select them for mounts. Competition is keen.

“It’s very cutthroat,” Burlington jockey Bill Troilo said. “You have to have a strong spine in this business.”

Every rider will say this: For those who can’t make weight, someone will come to take his or her place. It’s a fragile perch from which to pout.

“If this is the only way to go through it, I’ll go through it … until my body can’t take it any more,” Sellers said. “Because I love the game so much.”

When someone is too optimistic it is said that they are seeing the world through “rose colored glasses”.  And if someone is too narrow of mind it is said that they are, “going through life with blinders on”.  Some people have a very narrow focus or tunnel vision in their thoughts and beliefs. Some won’t even investigate another point of view and become “closed minded”. Individuals need to have strong convictions but also an open mind.

Of course with horses, and for our discussion, race horses in particular, sometime get distracted by the many happenings around them and need to stay narrow of focus. Thoroughbred race horses have great peripheral vision and they can literally see behind themselves. The main purpose of blinkers is to take away the horses’ peripheral vision and keep them focused on the race ahead. One of the most common pieces of equipment for horse racing known to horse race handicappers are the blinkers.

Blinkers, also called blinders or even winkers, are the eye shields attached to the horse’s bridle or head cover to block his peripheral vision and keep him looking forward on the racetrack thereby keeping track distractions to a minimum for the horse. The trainer typically tries blinkers on the horse in the morning during gallops and during workouts to see if they help. The exercise rider should be able to tell a difference and would provide this valuable information to the trainer.

In most cases, maiden horses (horses that have never won a race) run without blinkers until they prove they need them. The jockey may tell the trainer after a race that the horse is looking around and isn’t interested in the race. The horse owner and trainer, are always looking for improvement in the horse, as is a horse race handicapper. And something as small as the blinker can significantly improve a horse’s focus and performance.