TOO SMART TO WIN $1.7 MILLION DOLLARS
by Rob Crowne (www.CrowneClub.com)
Exclusively for Pregame.com
Published by permission - All rights reserved
 

"Slow and steady wins the race." -- Aesop, The Fable of the Tortois and the Hare.

" C’mon Black Beauty!" -- Elizabeth Taylor at the races rooting in the 50-1 shot. (Also, Liz in the Courtroom rooting in Michael Jackson.)

I’m too smart to win a once-in-a-lifetime $1,728,507! That was the incredible, unheard-of pay-out for a $2 bet on the superfecta in this year’s Kentucky Derby. It set a record as the largest pay-out in the history of racing. It’s a record that will probably stand for another 131 Runs for the Roses, and maybe longer. The winner’s share of the Derby purse was $1,639,600, and the owner of Giacomo had to pay a percentage to the trainer and the jockey, as well as a stiff entry fee, barn charges, feed charges, and vet charges. The superfecta paid more for no effort at all and a mere $2 expense. I didn’t have it (the superfecta that is -- I had the $2). I put in a ton effort analyzing the Kentucky Derby. I’m too smart to think I can win with no effort. I bet a large amount of money. I’m also too smart to think I can get rich on $2.

Winning the superfecta paid off like hitting a lottery, except all you had to do was pick 4 correct numbers out of 20. You wouldn’t think it would be so hard. Most lotteries are harder. I don’t play the lottery. I’m too smart to play the lottery. I’m also too smart to bet something at which you can have a positive expectation as if it were a lottery. If you play horse racing like a game of luck, the huge house take will quickly break you, unless, of course, you win $1.7 million dollars for a $2 ticket.

A few lucky guessers won the superfecta, the triple, and the exacta yesterday. The Triple paid a mere $133,000 for a $2 bet only because the second choice in the Derby, Afleet Alex, came in 3 rd. If Afleet Alex ran 4 th instead, the Triple would have probably paid over $1 million also. I didn’t have the Triple either.

An exacta ticket with 50-1 Giacomo for 1 st, and the biggest longshot in the 20-horse field for 2 nd, 71-1 Closing Argument, paid $9,800 for a $2 bet. I was too smart to have the exacta.

The insiders and smart money didn’t win anything in the Kentucky Derby yesterday. No one who knew anything had Giacomo to win – not the owner, not the trainer, not the jockey, not the horse’s other connections, not the syndicates, and not the wise guys. If any of those people were betting Giacomo, the horse wouldn’t have been the 7 th highest winning underdog in the history of the Derby.

Even most dart throwers didn’t have Closing Argument for 2 nd. The $9800 exacta was higher than the previous highest Kentucky Derby exacta by $8500. If anyone in-the-know thought Closing Argument would be close, the exacta wouldn’t have been one of the highest, if not the highest, exacta return in U.S. racing history.

Thanks to pari-mutuel wagering, the insiders and the professional gambling syndicates will never have a $9.800 exacta or a 50-1 winner. If the insiders or syndicates like a horse, their money will dictate that the horse will not go off at 50-1, and the exacta will not pay $9,800. There was a grand total of $8 bet on the winning superfecta combination in the Derby, and a mere $40 bet on the winning exacta combination. Not exactly the kind of numbers associated with insider and wise-guy betting.

Saturday’s Kentucky Derby was not one of those races that produced a killing for the smart money at the expense of the public. It was a race in which the insiders lost right along with the public. Every so often, the guy enriching the casino at the Megabucks machine will hit the jackpot. The 131 st Kentucky Derby was one of those strange unpredictable events that can happen every once in a blue moon. I’m way too smart to have won. The professional gamblers and smart money will never hit the jackpot on the Megabucks machine, and they’ll never go broke playing Megabucks either. They’re too smart to play Megabucks.

My mother-in-law had Giacomo to win. She picks horses based on nice-sounding names. She thought the name Giacomo sounded continental. She called to ask me to bet $5.00 on Giacomo for her. I didn’t call the bet in.

“Why give the bookmaker a $5 gift?” I thought to myself. “Giacomo has absolutely no chance of winning. They’ll have to jack Giacomo just to get him across the finish line.”

I now have to send my mother-in-law a $500 check from my own pocket. I bet thousands every day, but the mere thought of sending $500 to my mother-in-law has made me feel nauseous for two days now. Maybe I’m not so smart after-all.

Lesson learned: If the horse is in the race, he has some chance of winning.

Giacomo is not a bad horse, but there were at least 14 horses in the Derby who appeared more talented. Prior to the Derby, Giacomo had won only one race in his lifetime -- a maiden race. Seventeen horses in the Derby were stakes race winners this year, and 14 of those have won Graded Stakes. Graded Stakes are the top races in the country. Giacomo still qualified for a Non-Winner-of-One Except a Maiden Allowance. That’s the lowest level of Allowance races, and much poorer competition than most stakes races. Still, Giacomo couldn’t win in that category.

In fact, one of Giacomo’s 6 losses in his races was in the only “Non-Winner of One” Allowance he entered. He didn’t even win his first maiden race. He finished 5 th out of 9 horses, and 10 ¾ lengths behind the winner. He needed two tries to break his maiden.

Perhaps, Giacomo simply needed to mature, and got better as a 3-year old. He did, but not better enough. In his three prep races this year, Giacomo lost to Derby entrants Going Wild, Buzzard’s Bay, and Wilko. Those three were not exactly considered to have the best chance of winning this year’s Kentucky Derby, and they all beat Giacomo fair and square within the past 3 months. The highest official Beyer speed figure for Giacomo was 98. Few horses have ever won the Derby without a prior Beyer speed figure of at least 105. Bellamy Road’s last race earned a 120 Beyer speed number. Afleet Alex had Beyer numbers over 105 in all his races this year except the one in which he was discovered to have run with a lung infection.

To make matters worse, Giacomo had been shipped to Churchill Downs late. On May 1 he was still in California. Thoroughbreds don’t like new environments. They need time to acclimate to new surroundings and a new track. Giacomo was one of only three horses in the Derby that did not have a single workout over the Churchill Downs track. Most of the competition had been stabled and working at Churchill for several weeks, and were well acclimated to the track. Giacomo was an easy throw out for any knowledgeable handicapper.

So, Giacomo’s first non-maiden race win occurred in the Kentucky Derby, despite his being beaten this year by three other horses who were also in the Derby, and his shipping to Churchill late. Maybe you think the race set up well for him, or he happened to suddenly wake up. If so, you’re wrong.

Giacomo broke slowly out of the gate and ran 18 th around the track. That’s exactly where any good handicapper would expect him to be. To win, he would need to weave his way in and out between, and circle, 17 other horses – a disadvantage most good handicappers predicted, and a Herculean task for the very best horses. Giacomo was still 18 th coming into the far turn, and he took the tight turn 6 wide, running more distance than the horses on the rail in the process. He came out of the turn 6 th behind a wall of horses. He had to angle out 8 wide in the stretch to circle the group still in front of him. He didn’t run particularly fast in the stretch, but he passed everybody anyway. The final quarter was run in an unspectacular 26 4/5 seconds. That’s actually slower than Giacomo’s usual stretch speed in the races he’s lost. This was not a wake-up race for Giacomo, nor a sudden out-of–the-ordinary performance. Giacomo ran no faster than in any of his prior losing races, but won anyway. Truth is stranger than fiction. I can’t find any explanation for it.

Closing Argument, the longest shot on the board at 71-1, finished second. Closing argument broke from the 18 post. That’s a huge disadvantage at Churchill Downs, where the turns are tight. Only one horse in the 104 years that Churchill Downs has been using starting gates has won from the 18 post.

Closing Argument had only two starts as a three-year old. Horses lacking the experience of at least three races as a 3-year old rarely do well in the Kentucky Derby.

Closing Argument’s highest lifetime Beyer speed figure was 98, just like Giacomo. In The Blue Grass Stakes, his last prep race before the Derby, Closing Argument had a Beyer speed rating of only 88, and he was beaten badly by Derby entrants Bandini and High Limit. At least both Bandini and High Limit were considered to have a fair chance of winning the Derby. But they beat Closing Argument by a huge 9 lengths carrying equal weight. Closing Argument was another easy toss out for anyone who wasn’t simply picking blindfolded.

The loss by the favorite, Bellamy Road, was not a surprise. He was breaking from the 16 post. The 16 post has cooked many a horse. He was forced to run off the lead, which is not his preferred style, and he needed to exert himself at the start just to drop in fifth. It’s not Bellamy Road finishing out-of-the-money that is a surprise. It’s the horses that came in first and second that provides the surprise.

Afleet Alex, the second choice in the race, finished right where he handicapped to finish – third. Afleet Alex was the subject of this year’s wise-guy poker-table bluff. Talk about odds manipulation, the pump and dump scheme on Afleet Alex was obvious for days. The Daily Racing Form Saturday edition was written Thursday. When it hit the newstands early Friday morning it touted Afleet Alex as the “wise-guy horse.” Other newspapers across the country had the same story on Friday or picked it up and repeated it by Saturday. How would the newspapers know what the wise-guys intended to bet? Somebody with access to the media started a rumor. If anyone tells you, three days before a race, what the professionals will be betting, it’s usually just an attempt to bluff the public into betting the wrong horse. When the public bets the wrong horse, it increases the odds, or at least supports the odds, on the right horse.

The wise guys don’t announce their real selections to the news media three days in advance so that the entire world can bet the same horse, and they don’t bet three days in advance either. There’s no reason to bet early in the pari-mutuel system. Everyone gets the same post-time odds. There is plenty of reason to bet late. Close to post time there is more information, including the weather, how the track is playing, the shoes, the horse’s reaction in the post parade, and the probable price of each horse in the betting pool. Close to post there is also enough public money in the pools to mask what the smart money is doing.

Perhaps, whoever picked Afleet Alex for the subject of the early rumor knew about the hype to come on race day. Everyone at the track, as well as everyone at home, was treated to a tear-jerker short film about a little girl with cancer, who ran a lemonade stand for charity, and who died at the age of 8. Her name was Alex. A charitable foundation called Alex’s Lemonade Stand had been formed, and the trainer of Afleet Alex was sending a check to the foundation every time the horse won a race. There wasn’t a dry eye the house as the public ran to the windows to get the Lord on their side by betting Afleet Alex, and promising the Lord they would send a donation to the foundation if only they could cash their bet.

The film about Alex was shown not once, but twice, in case anybody missed it. Then, for the dummies who still couldn’t figure out that God, Jesus, and all the saints and prophets wanted Afleet Alex to win even more than they wanted the Dallas Mavericks to win, the talking TV heads mentioned that anyone who bet on Afleet Alex would have God on their side.

If they had only suggested that everyone send their money to the Alex Foundation instead of betting on Afleet Alex, the foundation would have had a lot more than they ever would have received if Afleet Alex won. The foundation definitely would have gotten a lot more than the big fat “0” they received when it turned out that everyone was wrong. The gods and prophets didn’t care one wit about little 8-year olds or cancer foundations. The gods and prophets had all bet the 10-18-12-17 superfecta for $2 each.

In fact, an Act-of-God is the best explanation I’ve heard so far for all four top finishers to have come from the tough outside posts, while post 16 probably led to the demise of Bellamy Road. How else, but through an Act-of-God, does a horse get his first non-maiden win in the Kentucky Derby, after a terrible trip from the 18 post, and running no faster than he has in his losing efforts in lesser races? If you have a better explanation than God, I’d like to hear it. .

When I was in my 20’s, I saw the off-Broadway play “Steambath,” written by Bruce Jay Friedman. In it, a gorgeous 20-something Valerie Perrine sat topless wearing a towel around her waste in a steambath where everyone who dies is waiting to get into heaven. In the play, God prefers to look like a Puerto Rican steambath attendant with acne, and he relaxes by mopping the floor. When done with his mopping, God gets his jollies by looking down on the world and causing completely unexpected random events.

“See that guy down there?” asks God, “I’m going to make him win the lottery. Look how happy he is? The idiot thinks it’s the best day of his life. Watch this.” God waves his hand, there’s the screeching of brakes, and the guy who won the lottery enters the steambath.

God looked down this past Saturday and said, “See all those idiots who think I’ll favor them if they bet Afleet Alex and promise to give some of the money to charity? Watch this.” Suddenly 18 horses in the race stop running while Giacomo and Closing Argument waltz by them in a time warp. Watch the race films carefully and you will see an almost imperceptible blip in the film right when the warp occurs. Then you’ll realize that you somehow missed how Giacomo and Closing Argument got to the front.

If the announcers had suggested that everyone send their money designated for bets on Afleet Alex to charity instead, how would Afleet Alex have become an underlay to the benefit of the real wise guy horse? Bluffers at the Poker table have no morals and no empathy. No wonder God made them lose.

It might have been the same influential folks who spread the early media rumor about Afleet Alex being the “wise-guy choice” who also got the powers-that-be at the track and at NBC to show the Afleet Alex short not once, but twice, and who got the talking heads to suggest that God would favor an Afleet Alex bettor. The insiders and wise guys play much better poker than the public. In any case, Afleet Alex was an over-hyped, over-bet loser.

The public has won very few Kentucky Derby races. Most years, it’s the insiders and wise guys who get the cash in the Derby, at the expense of the public. This year we experienced a very rare event -- a Derby for Dummies won by the dart throwers.

Although the smart money will never have the longest shot on the board or a $9800 exacta, they often have smaller longshots. The syndicate group we follow bet a horse that went off at 29-1 yesterday, Puxa Saco in the 8 th. We played Puxa Saco across the board (Win, Place & Show) and it paid us $13.20 for every $2 bet to show. We also bet a $12.40 winner and a $13.20 winner, and we hit the $123 exacta in the 12 th race. The smart money often cashes on horses paying double digits. They can cash exactas paying $200 to $300 and triples paying $1000 - $1500. But it would be very surprising to see anything the smarts win pay more because the wise-guy money itself reduces the odds when it goes into the pari-mutuel pool.

It was a day of long shots at Churchill Downs on Derby Day, and despite the Derby results, the smarts made money at the expense of the public, as usual. The public choice won only twice in 12 races on Saturday. The two winning favorites paid a piddling $4.00 and $3.00. If you bet $20 to win on every post-time public choice at Churchill Downs on Saturday, you would have risked $240 and lost $170. The syndicate group we follow had horses picked to win in 10 races. If you put $20 to win on each of the Wall Street Bankers’ ten first place choices, you would have invested $200 and collected back $256. That’s not a fortune, but, on a day on which the majority of bettors were getting burned, it was a nice 28% profit.

That return is a lot better than the bank, bonds (even junk bonds), the stock market most of the time, any other business, and the majority of other investments. I’ll take 28% on my money every day for the rest of my life. Bet $200 on each horse and you can retire on a 28% per day return. Bet $2000 per horse, like the big boys, and with a 28% daily return you’ll be making $5600 per day. That adds up, in a year, to the same $1.7 million that the lucky few dart throwers won on the once-in-the-history-of-racing superfecta. The insiders and wise guys are much too smart to win a once-in-history $1.7 million. They win that much year-in and year-out instead.

The second leg of the Triple Crown, The Preakness, is just two short weeks away. You can put on a blindfold, toss a few darts, and hope that lightening strikes twice with a once-in-131-years shot, or, you can bet with the group that’s too smart to win $1.7 million, but smart enough to win consistently. How many times have you hit a double-digit horse or a triple digit exacta on your own? The Wall Street Crew does it almost daily. Be with us when we hit more of those $13.40 horses and $123 exactas. Look for a special Plus 10 Club Preakness offer coming a few days before the race.

That wraps it up for TOO SMART TO WIN $1.7 MILLION. . .
by Rob Crowne (www.CrowneClub.com)
Exclusively for Pregame.com
Published by permission - All rights reserved

Other Pregame.com Derby Coverage:
Rob Crown's Betting The Races
Tripp Wright's Kentucky Derby Part 1 - The Contenders
Tripp Wright's Kentucky Derby Part 2 - Winning Strategy

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