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I may have neglected to sum up how I did in the somewhat less than historic 50 days of doubles that started in August and ran into October. The idea was that I would forsake all forms of betting, except for horse race doubles. I had to resist the urge to bet pro-line, scratch tickets, 649, that new rip-off lottery Lotto-Max and of course, the crack cocaine of gambling - the slots.

It was, at best, a mixed experience. I did hit a lot of doubles and some paid really well, but at the end of the 50 days, I had lost $200, which reinforces the idea that gambling on anything is usually a losing proposition.

My experience yesterday, does show that there is still much more value in betting on the horses than anything else. I spent $16 on proline - four tickets, $4 each. I took the Phillies to win and the Sabres-Devils to go under, but I liked the Sharks-Kings to go over ( 2-1 San Jose).  Even if I’d been right, my payoff for $4 would have been $30, or less than 8-1.

I was also betting the races last night, and after hitting a tiny double at Woodbine ( $20) and a puny exactor in the 3rd ( $15),  I like Emma-Jayne Wilson on Mrs. Cleaver in the fourth. I hit her win and place and had the exactor ($44.80) for a buck. That was worth more than $50 to me, but it was the sixth race that really enriched me. Steve Bahen is not the most successful jockey; he’s not even in Woodbine’s top ten (he’s 17th). But don’t interpret that as indicating he’s not a very good rider. I’ve had an amazing year betting Bahen in 2009. I hit him twice on a horse called I’m a Moon Too; 17-1 the first time, 30-1 the second time. So every time I’,m betting Woodbine and I see Bahen on a horse, I try and make an argument for him.  In the sixth last night, he was on Reel Tipsy, a 19-1 shot. Except Reel Tipsy looked to me as if it had a real shot. It was shortening up, had only 5 lifetime races and all of her finishes compared reasonably with the more heavily bet horses in the race. I bet Reel Tipsy $4 wp and in $1 exactors with several horses. Bahen rode her perfectly, staying towards the inside down the backstretch and when he decided to split horses in deep stretch, the filly had plenty of run, hitting the wire a good half length ahead of the heavy favourite San Souci. I got back $110 for my win/place and another $70 because the exactor was a pumped up $141, a wonderful payoff with the 6-5 favourite second in a 7-horse field.

Anyway, the point is…I cashed almost $200 and wasn’t required to pick three outcomes - just one forthe win/place and two for the exactor. For the billionth time, betting on the races proves to be more profitable than betting on lotteries.

This is a funny time of year for the horses. While the Breeders’ Cup is just a few days away, many of the very good horses have accomplished all they’re going to do and you have horses going in different directions. Many in a field will be all used up, while a few may be under-raced and much fresher than the others. This is the time of the year where a player should be especially sceptical of a favourite. Last night at Woodbine, only one horse scored as the choice.

oh..in the last race ( after I’d fallen asleep), Bahen brought in Toodle Oo at 7.35-1, finishing off a late double that was worth $178.

I think that makes my point.   

Unlike other major league sports, there is no actual ’season’ for horse racing. It’s a 12 month a year deal and most months, there’s something important going on somewhere.

For example, last Saturday at Woodbine was important on both the Thoroughbred and Standardbred fronts. Woodbine had three huge Turf races, all with Breeders’ Cup implications. The fantastic Champs Elysees put a huge exclamation mark on his career with a monster charge down the stretch to gobble up the field in the $2 million Pattison International. This mile and a half turf test was a Breeders’ Cup ‘Win and You’re In’ race, but Champs Elysees owners rewarded the colt by announcing his retirement. Capturing the Pattison won’t hurt his stud fees at all.

The mile and a quarter E.P. Taylor Stakes had one of those “what the’ finishes when 44-1 shot Lahaleeb won by almost two lengths dropping the collective jaws of most of the bettors who silently ( or otherwise) were sticking a common profanity after  “what the..” 

 The other turf Stakes on Saturday was the Nearctic, a six furlong spring and Field Commission scored for local trainer Danny Vella. Field Commission went off at 5.6-1, somewhat of a short price considering he had never won before on the grass. Local horse, Bogue Chitto, ridden by Gerry Olguin might have appeared to be in over his head with this group, but he came second at 21-1 .

When the Saturday thoroughbred races were over, Woodbine became a harness palace again, with three elimination heats for the Breeders Crown races which will take place on October 24.  The delightfully named Mr. Wiggles was a 10-1 surprise winner in the pace for three year old colts and geldings. Driven brightly by Cory Callahan, Mr. Wiggles undulated to the finish line two lengths the best. It was kind of a strange elimination heat, because pacing stars Well Said and Vintage Master had already been granted byes to the $617,880 final, which meant the top 8 out of ten in this race would also advance…Must have been quite the battle for 8th place - Straight Shooting and Runaway Energy were voted off the island.

They needed two eliminations for the 3 year-old filly trotters. Elusive Desire came home first for Paul MacDonell in the first heat and it was Margarita Momma scoring easily in the second for Ron Peirce. So this Saturday there will be eight Breeders Crown races at Woodbine, each worth in excess of $600,000 and in two Saturdays hence we have the Breeders’ Cup from Santa Anita.

 If you’ve been wondering why I hadn’t submitted to this blog for two weeks (as if anyone actually reads this!), my involvement with Down The Stretch, Canada’s most informative and entertaining horse racing newspaper has really sucked all my time away recently. For reasons I can’t divulge (well, ok, Breeders Crown bought a full page in the paper and we wanted to give the maximum bang for the buck) I wanted to bring the paper out a couple days earlier than usual. That compressed the time necessary to put everything together and to do it without an ocean of typos, misspells and dangling modifiers.

Anyway, the 24th issue of Down The Stretchis now in multiple locations - the main entrance and west entrance at Woodbine, all over the backstretch, in several ’select’ off-track Champion Theatres and as usual, it’s on the internet at www.downthestretchnewspaper.com - I think I’m safe in bragging that we’re the only paper with all our editorial content on line.

In the paper you can read about how I did in my noble and historic attempt to see what would happen to one man who chose only to bet daily doubles for 50 days ( still waiting to hear from the Nobel people). There’s a two page feature on trainer Roger Attfield, one of the very finest people in the game, an update on the Fort Erie situation (deteriorating, as usual) and a full page of picks for the upcoming Breeders’ Cup. Contributor Keith McCalmont is pretty sharp when it comes to handicapping and I’ve read the odd form, but we once again brought in the world’s most horse racing knowledgeable hamster, Orbit, for his B.C Cup breakdown. When it comes to must read stuff, anybody have some carrot shavings?

Let’s get caught up here. Did you see the Prix de lArc de Triomphe from Paris on Saturday?  I was in the backstretch to do an interview with the ever pleasant Roger Attfield and as I returning to my car from his trailer outside barn four, jockey agent Jack Lauzon said hello and asked if I’d just seen the race. My first response was one of disappointment that I hadn’t been paying enough attention to realize there was a huge Grade 1 horse race at 9 am and when Lauzon told me the favourite Sea The Stars had won impressively, I raced home to watch  the replay.

And…holy crap or innuendos to that effect. People are already talking about Sea The Stars in terms of ‘best horse of the year’ and even ‘best race horse of all time’ and the mile and a half Arc does nothing to discourage that thinking. At the midway point, Jockey Mick Kinane had Sea The Stars buried in the middle of the 18 horse field; not just buried behind several horses, but pinned on the hedge and there were a couple of overly-optimistic runners who had opened up at least a dozen lengths.  Down the very long right to left stretch, Kinane manoevred Sea The Stars through the slimmest of openings and it was incredible to see how quickly they gobbled up real estate - it seemed that within a matter of strides, Sea The Stars had erupted from the pack and was in the lead, striding with authority to the finish to notch his 6th straight Group 1 win. There’s no question, this horse owns Europe - no one has touched him this year. Now he must come to Santa Anita for the Breeders’ Cup. He was the 4-5 favourite in the Arc (no small feat in an 18 horse mob) and he’d be much less than that in the Turf Classic, but if it is to be proved that he is the best horse on the planet, he needs to run in the dirt (or synthetic) Classic. That shouldn’t be a problem as the European horses are showing every year how easily they adapt to the poly or the  pro-ride. So let’s assume that Sea The Stars wins the Classic and even puts up a time under 2:00, does that make him a better horse than Rachel Alexandra (who isn’t allowed to run on fake dirt)?

Discuss amongst yourselves.

There was a very cool moment at Woodbine on Sunday. Jockey Patrick Husbands won the tenth race on Grazettes Landing, trained by Mark Casse. It was Husbands’ 2000th  career win and the guys in Woodbine’s media office just don’t miss a beat. They made sure that the landmark was celebrated - a banner proclaiming the accomplishment was already in the winners circle by the time Husbands and Grazettes Landing had trotted in  to get their pictures taken. Very appropriate that Husbands scored his 2000th on a horse trained by Casse; by Husbands’ count, he and Casse have teamed up for over 600 winners. But there was some very classy behaviour by a couple of other jockeys. You need to know that when these moments occur - a special win by a jockey - there is just a minute or two to organize a picture and jockeys can be running back to get changed and especially so after the final race on the card.

But there was both Todd Kabel and Jim McAleney smiling in the picture on behalf of the rider who had just beaten them. Kabel is back riding brilliantly this year, hopefully a lengthy respite from the on-going battle he has with his weight and he owns the record of 193 wins for a year of riding at Woodbine. Husbands’ victory on Grazettes Landing was his 132nd of the season and, mathematically, he’s on pace to break Kabel’s record by maybe one or two wins. It was especially interesting to see McAleney helping with the celebration. Last year Jimmy Mac had a sizeable lead in the jockeys’ race and at some point in the final two weeks, made a harmless comment to Husbands, suggesting the race was already won and Patrick should throw in the towel. Husbands repeatedly pointed out that it was that offhanded sentence that spurred him on and he won a pile of races in the final days to edge McAleney out. So, it was an act of class for McAleney to contribute to the props that Husbands received. These guys are prepared to kill each other on the racetrack, but off the poly, there is a unique bond among them.

                                       ……………………….

You may recall that a few weeks ago, I decided to take a vow of daily doubles, abandoning all other wagers and bets to focus only on doubles. Sad to report, it has not gone well. I hit some big payoffs on the first weekend of the experiment, but it’s gone very dry since then. I actually went from September 4th into Sunday, October 4 without showing a profit on any single day.

However, there has been a flicker of fortune, which I can’t really take much credit for. I bet my last $12 Sunday on the 6th race double at Santa Anita and needed the 1 or 10 to win…each finished far down the track and I turned off HPI. It wasn’t until Tuesday morning, while checking  my account online, did I realize that I’d won the double. I don’t recall betting the winner - the 5 horse - but my account seems to think I did and there was $44 just begging to be bet. I threw a few $1 doubles at the Tuesday card at Turf paradise and hit two nice doubles in a row. The first paid $88 and the second (combining a 7-1 shot with an 8-1 shot) kicked back a delightful $173. I had each for a buck, but it was still a nice and slightly lucrative break from a month of losing.

That being said, I’m still down a few hundred from the 50 days of doubles, which has just nine days left to run.    

 If I make a great comeback and show a profit for the 50 days, will the Woodbine communication guys come to my house with a celebratory banner. Will McAleney and Kabel show up for the picture?

Well, a guy can dream, can’t he? 

Every horseplayer should  have the experience I had yesterday. Woodbine racetrack held a number of races on the turf yesterday, but this time with people, not horses, running down the stretch for charity. I was in the United Way corporate relay against 9 or ten other teams entrusted with the seeming easy challenge of a 4 X 100 yard relay down the E.P Taylor turf to the finish line in front of the grandstand.

I had assembled a team that included 680News traffic beauty Eva Fragiskatos, Down The Stretch contributor Keith McCalmont and his soccer teammater Shayne Boyd, brought in for his Irish grass breeding. Unfortunately as unofficial captain of the 680news/Down The Stretch team, I was required to run.

As I age - I’m in year 60 now - it seems I’m developing quite the reality gap between what I think I can do and what I’m actually capable of ( though my horse betting has always been like that). My strategy this year made a lot of sense to me; because of my own inherent early speed, I should be the first out of the gate. With my remarkable immediate ‘churn’ I believed I could give our team a good start and a chance to beat the two Toronto Police Force teams and the foursome of jockeys.

I had another brilliant strategy. They actually had us coming out of a real starting gate and in each stall of the gate there are waist high ledges for the assistant starters to hold on to the horses as they load. I lifted myself onto the ledges with the intention of throwing myself out of the gate. With such a spring-loaded start, I would earn myself an even better break than all the others.

So Sandy Hawley presses the start button, the gates open and I throw myself forward. Except I land flat footed and stop dead on the grass only to see every other runner propelling several yards ahead of me. I poured it on to the best of my ability, but by the time I reached our second runner, Eva, I was gassed.  Keith and Shayne did quite well,  but I’d put my team in such a hole, we did no better than 7th…

The point here is that when we watch the races and bet on horses, we’re so pissed off when the ones we bet on fade in the stretch. We’d like to think that horses are machines, not massive structures of bone and muscle and sinew. Run down the Woodbine Stretch as fast as you can for as long as you can and then try and pass someone who is better, strong, faster than you. The lungs burn, the legs fail. maybe now you know how a horse feels.

 The race was won by one of the police teams. The jockeys came second and herein is a tip for next year. The jockeys’ team was Emma-Jayne Wilson, Eurico Rosa da Silva, Anthony Stephens and Corey Fraser. Fraser ran in the sprint just half an hour after competing in the mile and a half race, which was won impressively by Woodbine Entertainment President Nick Eaves. Fraser came in third.

Less than two hours after the people races, the night card of thoroughbred racing began and had you bet only on the jockeys from the United Way races, you would have made a nice profit. The very light Eurico Rosa da Silva captured the first race on Heavy Steve ($6.70) and came right back to win the third on Graeme Wafer ($10.50). Emma-Jayne Wilson brought home Two Wonders ($14.30) in the 4th and Corey Fraser completed his unique triactor by winning the 6th race with Genswick Park ($8.20) . Anyone astute enough to bet $100 to win on every horse ridden by the four jockeys in the United Way races would have earned a profit of $985. Anyone astute enough to bet every horse last night that I bet on would have….oh let’s not go there.

Woodbine will forthwith release the amount of money earned for the United Way. Donations were extracted from bets placed by each team on themselves. I know this from a painful personal experience - I bet $50 to show on my team, assuming wisely that my brilliant starting gate strategy would gives us an enormous edge.  In future years, I may have to seriously reconsider my position as playing captain.