Monday's World Famous Super Spectacular Blog - Woodbine Live Visit & NA Cup Thoughts, Chuck Simon is Probably Right.... But, & Old Greenwood Raceway Bets

Good morning everyone, it's that time again. But maybe this is not super, nor spectacular this week. I was in the Canadian Shield at a lake and and I'm sure there were some great arguments on twitter and hot news that I missed. 

Interestingly enough though, I spent some time with someone originally from Russia, and learned some Russian words. I might sprinkle those in from time to time for the loyal Ruskie bot readers. 

Anyhow, here are some random thoughts and whatnot - 

I had a long layover last week, and like most normal people with a layover, I went to the track. 

I have not been to Woodbine for live racing in quite some time. Here's a few observations of what I thought was the state of the live product at that venue. 

• Say what you want when it comes to wagering, but Woodbine sinks cash into their property. There was construction everywhere, and expansion was evident. 
• Table games and more slot machines took over the third floor at the east end. I didn't recognize the area and didn't go in, because I am allergic to anything but horse racing. But it's there. 
• I was amazed how many flat screens were around, and equally amazed at what they were advertising - low takoeut WPS at Hawthorne, low juice bets at Hoosier Park - while Woodbine doesn't really have any low takeout bets at their live venue to advertise. One ad I could not understand - commercials for NYRA Bets, where you can't even sign up for it in Ontario. 
• The Burgers are good, better than I remember. 
• I enjoyed sitting with my boys once again in the betting lounge - that is, the Jamaican crew. I'm pretty sure it's like this at New York tracks too, where the city has a big population. It was just like I remember - friendly, and they cheer like hell. My seat mate, Wayne, said after a particularly raucous finish, "you gotta love the racetrack". I love the melting pot of a city track; don't ever change. 
• The fifth race was a pretty horrible maiden claimer and I liked the 20-1 morning line shot. It must've been a bad line because the horse was fairly live at 5-1, then floated to 12-1. There was a slight delay and the horse went from 12-1 to 6-1 to 7-2 chalk the last couple flashes and won like a 4-5 shot. While I usually hear the "they knews" on twitter, I got to see it live this time and it was glorious. 
• For fellow layover enthusiasts, it's now a $30 flat rate from the track to Pearson. Gas is expensive in the Tundra. 
• Over the urinals (not sure about the ladies room) Woodbine HPI (Woodbine's ADW) rewards were posted. I don't know why, but I found this funny. I was impressed with the 10% off food offer for members. I think I suggested that on this blog around 15 or so years ago, so I was clearly ahead of the curve!

I didn't stay for the North America Cup at Mohawk, but I did watch from the ADW machine and found the races exciting, the show good, and despite the accident in the Mohawk Gold Cup, the night an overall good one. 

Some thoughts:

• Handle was high once again, but I noticed the super high five mandatory is not doing what it once did. The market seems to be speaking. Zeron had his horse ready to go, and the field (and the bettors who couldn't handicap this occurrence) were cannon fodder. 
• Scott Zeron, who bettors complain often isn't aggressive enough, was aggressive all night. And it won him the Goodtimes and the North America Cup. 
• I see some folks giving Jordan Stratton the gears for his drive on Voukefeles in the Cup, but I personally can't fault him a ton. He wanted to stick to Tetrick who was driving the chalk, but Tetrick got too far back early. I can definitely agree he should've stayed on the outside and moved David Miller and Ammo three wide, but in the end it probably would not have mattered. For the record I bet him. 
• Sylvia Hanover gets a lot of love, but (willing to be wrong on this, because it's the way we roll) I think Charleston is the better mare and will prove it this year. That was an Always B Miki Meadowlands Pace trip that filly got in the Fan Hanover. I can't believe she was still charging home. 
• John Rallis's interview with Tom Hill after Grace Hill won the Roses Are Red was hilarious. Not only did Tom snatch the mic from Rallis like he was stealing a kid's string cheese at snack time, he berated just about everyone for not giving his mare any credit. And he even shared he thinks it's maybe in part because they don't like English people. 
• OK, I find this weird. The connections of all horses in the Cup watch from the same spot, and you can't cheer or get excited because it's not proper. Nancy Takter in a beach chair, Joe Holloway, and the winner Linda Toscano were featured (and props to Brett Pelling for doing the horseplayer "dip" when he just fell short).  I'll tell ya, this is a much different scene than my old horse owning partner Vern who I saw cheer one of our 5 claimers to victory at 30-1 where people called 911 to report that a crazy person escaped the asylum. 

I saw Mike's tweet about watching the North America Cups at Greenwood long ago (they were packed!) and it got me thinking about the place ...... 

Greenwood, 1924

The way we bet today certainly has changed, and we all know most of the differences – e.g. we bet online in ITP’s mom’s basement. 

For the less obvious, I thought about “The Super Seven” recently. This was a $1 wager at old Greenwood Raceway in Toronto and as the name implies, you had to pick the winners of seven consecutive races.

Greenwood, like most city tracks in the late 80’s or early 90’s, was filled with bettors, and invariably someone was alive in the Super Seven after leg four or five. They’d scour the grandstand like mice looking for cheese, trying to sell a piece of their ticket. 

This secondary market was especially interesting because people had a devil of a time pricing what a ticket was worth. We didn’t have screens showing us how much was alive. We didn’t have rolling double payoffs to look at. And I don’t think we even had a pool size number. 

After watching this phenomenon during this epoch, I think the sellers made out better than the buyers because the buyers tended to be more bullish on prices. Perhaps there’s a human behavioral wagering lesson in there for us. 

Regardless, downtown racetracks were a blast for so many reasons. Piecing out sweeps tickets is a long-gone lost art, but it was one of them, and it was absolutely fabulous.

Regarding those who believe racing will "end" if we don't embrace polytrack, or HISA rules, or whatever to prevent more breakdowns, I believe Chuck is mostly right. He conveys that we will never eliminate breakdowns, for example, and lowering them to 0.25 per thousand starts from say, 2.0 in a thousand starts is meaningless when it comes to the longevity of the sports' funding.

However, I do look at this (shocking I know) as an expected value math problem. 

This sport is increasingly rent seeking, so if it receives (for example) $1B of its revenue a year through government decree, protecting that on a per year basis is more political than real. 

Let's take polytrack. 

The sport decides to go full blown poly, and let's assume this means less economic activity (not a given of course) of $100M. 

But if that decision allows governments and the public (they're trying to do better!) to continue funding at a higher probability (slot deal cancel chances are 10% versus 20%) mathematically you're ahead of the game. Yes, you're better off, even with the Kentucky Derby running on Goodyear tires. 

This, in my view, is not about what the bettors or breeders think of polytrack, or lasix, or anything else along those lines. It's, like handicapping, a game of probabilities. And the longer the sport of horse racing keeps the probability of subsidies high, the game won't end anytime soon. We'll just have to live with the stuff many other industries in the same position have and do. 

I use TimeformUS, and they keep doing some neat things. Aside for Canadian readers, the spouse of the figure maker at TFUS loves curling, so there's that, too. 

Pat Cummings wrote an excellent piece about the make-up of the wagering pools, CRW wagering and where it's going. Well researched and well done Pat. Worth a read. 

I saw a local reporter say the Leafs a month or so ago were the odds-on favorites to win the Cup (at +450). This is (mis)used quite a bit isn't it? We in sports or horse racing gambling use it (correctly) for something that is below even money (the odds are "on"), rather than over even money (the odds are "against"). But if you search the web - like assuming that dude did - you'll get a definition of "most likely to win" in a lot of places.

I read the WSJ last week and learned Jeff Bezos' Amazon side hustle Blue Origin has been chosen to develop a moon lander. A hundred years ago super-rich folks like Rockefeller were off vaccinating people against hookworm, or developing schools to broaden education, so things certainly have moved on. We're the Jetsons now, and the progress has been sensational. 

Meanwhile, here I am wishing horse racing went backwards to 1907 when parimutuel wagering was invented and the takeout was 5%. 5% to 21% in a century doesn't feel like progress to me; certainly not let's-go-to-space-with-a-machine-made-by-a-guy-who-sold-books-online-25-years-ago progress.

Watched Jerry and Marge Go Large on Paramount+ a couple of weeks ago and found it super cute. The film, about working class retirees who took the Massachusetts lottery for $27 million unsuspectingly pays homage to any of us who tried to beat a game. They simply found a flaw where the prize payout was +EV during the carryover portion, and interestingly enough, the math (and game theory) shown in the movie I thought was pretty accurate. Lucky for them there were no CRW's to take it down back then (but there were some pesky Harvard math kids).

Let's be sure to have a very nice week everyone, and as always be nice to each other on the social media; but maybe not too nice since I need content for this blog. 

A challenge: Next week I'd like to highlight one of you (non-team players) hitting a $100k pick 5 or 6 as my main feature story, so please get on that and make it so.