Question

[bigmack]

What's the level of larceny in the game and do you care?
If so, do you feel it's track and/or regionally specific?

[bigmack]

And Beyer says:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/26/AR2005102602219.html

[KingChas]

Larceny = Liberty Bell harness track in the 70's. :D

Hayward shares the opinion that the security barn has been effective but not foolproof. "I don't pretend that the barns have stopped everyone," he said. "You look at the past performances and that's not the case."

Being serious, I am not a big fan of security barns until they can be made permanent structures resembling the stables of the horses.We the betting public are unaware when the horses do not take to this new surrounding.Saratoga (had or) has a standalone stable for the stakes horses-(Am I correct?).Didn't a favorite for a big race,shall I say spazz out in one of these security barns prerace without our knowledge and run off the board?

I don't like seeing honest (sic?) trainers being penalized or compromised by this situation.

[bigmack]

What is the level of testing at various tracks? Are we in a 'Barry Bonds' world where anything goes?

I admit to being fairly naive to the backside of this game and welcome input for what it's worth.

[KingChas]

Are we in a 'Barry Bonds' world where anything goes?
.

And how honest are the overseers or testers in these barns?Humans and big $$$$ = ?
That's the reason I added (sic) to honest trainers.Does such a trainer exist?And if he does I bet he never told a lie in his whole life. ;)

To answer your BB question.We are Damm close! :eek:

[kenwoodallpromos]

Latest results:

"May 2002 Final report of the Supertest project is released. A total of 22 confirmations of RCI Class 1, 2 or 3 drugs in 1,596 samples are found (1.4%)."
I'm 1.5% concerned.
My concern is that a horse will sustain injury because of being oblivious to pain due to the legal drugs in it.
My opinion is that knowing they can get caught deters some trainers, like with milkshaking.
A good drug punishment might be to allow all caught trainers' horses to run only in claiming races for 3 months.

[The Judge]

I know a horse hid in the fog (lost in the fog) at Louisiana Downs and didn't go around twice won by 16 the way he got caught was the prior race he had lost by 24. Trainers get caught stuffing sponges down their horses nose so they can't breath.

Even so in Hollywood movies they have to do a lot of re-takes on horse racing scenes because the horse that is supposed to win keeps getting beat and this is when they are trying to fix the race.

The biggest rip of all was when they would scratch your horse at the gate and put you on the posttime favorite. What if its a pic -6 and you alreaday have the posttime favorite now you have him twice. This is especially sinister becuase they could check to see how many tickets were still alive heading into the later rounds of the pic-6. You can now pick an alternate horse and I encourage everyone to choose an alternate horse so when the computer is checked it will show multiple tickets will kick in if a horse is scratched at the gate.

[Jeff P]

Larceny?

I used to live in the Phoenix area. One rainy Sunday in December (1999 or 2000) I was sitting in the clubhouse at Turf Paradise. Joining me at my table were a couple of guys I knew who owned horses. At Turf Paradise, and elsewhere, they offer rolling doubles. They also offer a consolation double. Pick the winner in the first half to a late scratch in the second half and you don't get the favorite. You get a consolation payoff instead. Consolation payoffs are only a fraction of the regular payoff. The way they make the consolation payoff is to skim a little money out of the pool - which makes less money available to be distributed among holders of the actual winning double combination.

One of the guys at my table had played a large double - two horses in leg one - to a horse that he owned in leg two. One of the horses he liked won the first leg. When the race was made official he showed everyone at the table his $200.00 ticket.

"Has she ever run in the mud?" another owner at the table asked.

"You know she HATES the mud," the first owner said. He had the faintest crack of a smile on his face as he said this. I knew something was up but I wasn't sure what.

"That's too bad," the other owner laughed.

Betting a horse like that on an obviously rainy/muddy day made no sense to me at all. I just had to know what he was thinking. "Then why did you bet her like that?" I asked.

Everbody at the table looked at me like I was crazy - like I was from another planet or something.

"Knows he not what he speaks," the first owner said, laughing and doing his best Yoda impersonation. "Watch and learn young Skywalker... watch and learn..." He then picked up his cell phone and called his trainer. "Hey, how you doin? Me too. Yup. Say why don't we scratch her today and run in that race next Wednesday? She's eligible, right? You will? Thanks man. You're awesome!"

A few minutes later his horse was announced as a late scratch. The consolation double paid something like $5.80 if I remember right. Not a large payoff by any means but certainly a sure thing for the owner. His only risk was getting a live ticket in the first place - to a horse he knew he could scratch.

Somehow I have a hard time believing that what I witnessed had never happened before - or since.


-jp

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[Ron]

I believe something like that could happen, but it seems like its not worth the 56 dollars. Don't they have to pay an entry fee?

[Jeff P]

His ticket was worth $580.00. I'm guessing the entry fee was somewhere around $150.00 to $200.00. So in this one instance he made a litle bit of money by knowing his horse was going to be scratched.

-jp

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[ryesteve]

His ticket was worth $580.00. I'm guessing the entry fee was somewhere around $150.00 to $200.00. So in this one instance he made a litle bit of money by knowing his horse was going to be scratched.

-jp

.
It almost sounds like he would've netted more money if he just bet the horse in the first race to win, and then not have to worry about scratching his horse from the 2nd.

[JustRalph]

It almost sounds like he would've netted more money if he just bet the horse in the first race to win, and then not have to worry about scratching his horse from the 2nd.

bird in the hand.........versus.......?

[ryesteve]

What bird in the hand? To cash the conso double, or to cash a win ticket, the horse in the first race had to win either way.

[Jeff P]

You're right. Betting the winner of the first race to win would have netted him more money. But that's not the way that he thought or operated. (LOL) Over the years that I hung with him I saw him make quite a few attempts at betting coups - but never in a straightforward way. He would pre bet races - say $1000.00 to win using 20 separate $50.00 tickets on the second or third morning line choices - and then gradually cancel these as post time neared - just to get better odds on a morning line favorite he had heard good things about from his friends on the backside - stuff like that. If he had put the same amount of time and effort into handicapping and money management that he put into thinking about ways to subvert the tote... Who knows? He probably could have done far better than he ever actually did.

-jp

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[ryesteve]

Kinda reminds me of the Seinfeld episode when Kramer drove to Wisconsin to get an extra 5 cents on empty soda can deposits :D Nevermind that gas and tolls would eat up the difference... it's all about executing a scam

[kenwoodallpromos]

Sounds like the owner knows how to play the shell game! How many bettors altered their bets after the late scratch?LOL!

[skate]

ya, but then he could deduct expense

[CryingForTheHorses]

And how honest are the overseers or testers in these barns?Humans and big $$$$ = ?
That's the reason I added (sic) to honest trainers.Does such a trainer exist?And if he does I bet he never told a lie in his whole life. ;)

To answer your BB question.We are Damm close! :eek:

There are honest hardworking trainers Chas!..Being honest with your work and training eforts and doing everthing within the rules of racing to make you horse run better.I have been in the game for a long time and have been in lots of different test barns,Licenses are checked and they wont even let you refill the water bucket, They do that!..They take pee samples and seal them in front of you, Then they take blood and then seal it with a sticker right in front of you as you sign as a witness of the sample.My horses have been milkshake tested at least 7 times in 53 starts at Calder..I can make them run 7 to 10 points higher by being honest and not cheating.

[KingChas]

There are honest hardworking trainers Chas!..Being honest with your work and training eforts and doing everthing within the rules of racing .

You are right Tom,my apology.I was more or less refering to every trainer I ever worked with (yrs ago standerdbred) seemed to have a special feed,salve..etc..that was either handed down to them or kept in the family.
Certain things were always considered (my special-my secret...).By the honest comment I meant a trainer will not reveal everything about his horses fitness.
I generalized-sorry.Keep up the good work. :ThmbUp:

[WJ47]

I think Andy Beyer's article says it perfectly. I remember putting Greg Martin on my DRF trainer watch list with the comment, "Performs miracles, unlikely horses keep winning". I figured he was probably doing something. I made a few bucks betting on some of his horses. The funny thing was that his horses were all getting pretty well bet, not like 20/1 shots or something winning with darkened forms. I had drastically cut down on my betting, particuliarly pick 3's and 4's because there were races with multiple shady trainers and if I left them out, they'd win. If I added them to my ticket, it would cost too much. I couldn't take it when Martin or one of the other ones beat me and it was wrecking my handicapping.

Then one day I'm shopping at the local grocery store (I live in a suburban area of Buffalo, NY) and I walk by the newspaper shelf and I see the New York Post. The headline is "Mob Day at the Races!" and there is a huge picture of A One Rocket on the front page! :)So of course, I buy it, and I'm so distracted with the newspaper that I can't even concentrate on what I needed from the store. I kept thinking, "I knew it!"

Alot of my handicapping centered on trainers that I thought were crooked or drugging, ect. When they started really clamping down, the races seemed more formful in New York, but I found myself unable to handicap in a normal manner. I think the races are more honest in NY now. There are still some trainers that I suspect of monkey business, but what can you do? See, the problem I have is when I see a good performance in the past for a horse, I wonder if he was getting milkshaked back then.

Now some of the smaller tracks totally confuse me. Maybe its just me and sometimes I think my downfall at the small tracks is that I'm not really good at the "race condition" factor. For years and years, I never even looked at the race conditions. I'd look to see if it were allowance, claiming, maiden, ect, but not the actual conditions.

But I'm not actually sure why they primarily try to fix the races, to cash a bet or steal a purse. Alot of the fixing that I've heard about involves not letting certain horses win so they can box the others. It would seem to me that at some of these slot casino tracks, the purses are so nice these days, that they'd be trying to win it everytime. The purse seems like it would be far more valuable than darkening form, drugging or stiffing the horse to cash bets. I could see when some of the smaller tracks were only paying $1200 for a purse that it would be more profitable to try to cash a bet.

I also wonder how these offshore betting places affect larceny at the tracks. I remember an incident at Finger Lakes where someone placed huge wagers on a first time starter with about 10 of the offshore wagering sites. The horse won and some of the places didn't want to pay, saying it was a fix or the horse was drugged. I guess if I had a hot tip or knew a horse was going to win and I wanted to place huge wagers, I'd do it that way too as not to make the odds go down.