Staying Out in Front With the Heavy Favorites

The Actress was standing at the rail in the grandstand during the fall Hollywood Park race track season recently concluded, watching the second race of Dec. 14, 1989, as the horses thundered around the far turn. In the stretch, her horse, Gorbys Guy, took a five-length lead. At the finish, the horse was first by 10 lengths. Winning tickets received $7.20 for every $2 bet.

What was interesting about the race was that 12 horses were entered, the winner came from the outside and it was a seven-furlong affair for 2-year-old maidens. More important for the Actress, the horse went off at $2.60 to $1.

The Actress is a leggy 25-year-old with blond hair who works regularly as a waitress in a Beverly Hills restaurant but who runs off periodically to bit parts in films and television. During her time off, she visits the track and bets the ponies, which she has been doing successfully for two years.

Of course, her winnings aren’t making her rich. However, she does win enough now and then to enable her to take a trip back East to Upper New York state, where her two brothers, three sisters and parents live.

The same day Gorbys Guy won, in the ninth race, Peaked, from the outside of eight horses, running a six-furlong sprint for 3-year-olds and up, went wire-to-wire to win by three-quarters of a length. The nag paid $7 after going off at $2.50 to $1.

Again the Actress cashed in her ticket. In fact, it was her second wager of the day and her second win. She didn’t bet another race and she went home with a substantial profit.

What is her secret? Simple. She bets the favorite with odds of $2 to $1 or higher. If there is no such favorite, she skips the race.

Since the “chalk” wins 30% to 33% of the races, the Actress concludes that betting every favorite, even though they are usually a solid bet, is a quick way to bankruptcy, because their average payoff is only about $5 when they do win. Therefore, if you bet $2 a race for each of the daily nine races, and the favorite wins three of them, you’ll still end up losing a few bucks.

In addition, there’s no guarantee that three favorites are going to win every day. There may be days when all the favorites lose. Of course, there also could be days when six or seven favorites win. Admittedly, however, those days are rare.

Bettors who like action on every race will probably turn up their noses at such a system. But the Actress is very patient and finds that talking to racing fans during the races is fun, particularly as she wins more than she loses.

Actually, only two races may qualify for a bet on some days and maybe seven on others. But since she doesn’t bet every race, when she has a losing day, her losses are small and can be made up with the profit from the winning days.

Another winning session for the system was on Nov. 29, 1989, when only four races were bet and two resulted in winners. The lineup and odds to $1 in the first race of the day for 3-year-olds and up at seven furlongs went like this:

Flying H, $2.20

Matthew T, $5.20

Temper T, $6.70

Cash In Store, $8.10

Instinctive Reason, $9.00

Bust Your Buttons, $10.10

Kamikaze, $10.50

Polysemous, $11.80

Greek Turf, $13.60

Emigrant Gap, $35.40

Woody Q, $61.70

Bold Crusader, $110.40

Looking at the totalizator board, bettors could see that Flying H, which was in post position seven, was the system nag. However, it lost the race and came in third. System players were out $2.

In the second race, Random Stripes ran to an easy eight-length victory and paid backers $6.60. System players jumped ahead $2.60. The eighth race, 1 1/16 miles on the turf for 3-year-olds and up, produced another winner when Reve Dore entered the stretch in third place, closed strongly and won by 1 1/4 lengths. It paid $7.40 to win, giving system players an $8 profit.

Pima Road, the system horse in the ninth race at a mile for 3-year-old fillies, finished second. Thus, qualifying horses would have required bets of $8 and winnings would have amounted to $14, for a $6 profit.

Overall during the 30-day 1989 Hollywood Park meeting, of the 270 races, 117 would have called for a wager, with 34, or 28% winning. There were 15 winning days, 16 losing days and one day that came out even. Total profit for the 34 winners resulted in returns of $62, while losses were $57.

System players would have ended the meeting with a $5 profit, which isn’t anything to sneeze at considering that almost all bettors take a bath day in and day out and find that sooner or later their friendly bank is going to cut off their funds.

Some system players bet progressively until a win occurs. However, bettors must decide beforehand how many losing bets they want to make in a series, because progressive betting can get out of hand if it goes on too long. Once they hit a cutoff point, however, or even if they win, they should start over again with an initial $2 bet.

What most bettors face, however, whether they wager on favorites or long shots, is luck. Good luck, of course, is a horse that runs straight and true and comes home a winner. Bad luck may come in the form of disqualifications, poor starts, horses bumping one another, horses that jump at shadows and horses that don’t run a straight line.

Someone once asked the Actress how luck affected her horses. She said: “Don’t pay any attention. I once had a horse that dropped dead from a heart attack just as it crossed the finish line. But it was in front and won.” Obviously, it was a stout-hearted victory!