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trying2win
11-19-2002, 01:42 AM
Over the years, I've read or heard many quotes, anecdotes, musings and one-liners from authors, friends and acquaintances regarding betting on the horses. Some of the sayings I've come across, were to me humorous, philosophical, or the rantings of a frustrated loser. An interesting thing though, some of the sayings appeared to have some truth to them.

Pardon some of the fractured English in the sayings. It was put there on purpose for phonetic reasons. Sorry if I put in the odd unfamiliar word. You can always look up the meaning at www.dictionary.com.. An opportunity to increase your vocabulary.

Anyways, here are some of the sayings I recall:

--"80% of the people who bet on the races, lose over the long run. Another 15% are liars!"

--"Some of the things that were happening to me in that losing streak, bordered on the occult!"

--"You can't beat the races by handicapping. The only way to beat the races is by knowing about a fixed race or using a system."

--"The racetrack is the only place I know of, where a thousand people can go for a ride on one horse."

--"No matter what I do during this losing streak, I lose. I'm cursed I tell ya! I always seem to be one notch out on every bet I make. When I bet to win, they finish second. If I bet the exacta, they finish first and third. If my horse is leading all the way, he gets nipped at the wire. If my horse is coming from behind, he can't quite get there. If I finally win and there's an inquiry, they throw out my horse practically everytime." The only thing that gets me out of a losing streak is a four or five figure mutuel."

--"I was gonna bet the number three horse, but my friend said
how can you bet that dog. So I bet his choice, the 6 to 5 favorite. The number three horse won and paid $53.40 to win. I kicked myself all the way home."

--"You can always tell a crooked track. The win payoffs are usually hot favorites or left-field longshots, with hardly any other kind of win price in between."

--"When I went to the racetrack today, I saw the same old haggard faces!"

--"I'm gonna bet the number five horse in this race, 'cause he owes me money."

--"I made my first two dollar bet at the races many years ago. I've been trying to get that two dollars back ever since."

Anybody else got any other sayings about the racetrack, that they wish to share with us here?

Lefty
11-19-2002, 02:27 AM
A non-raceplaying friend is fond of quoting me this one: The racetrack is the only place where the windows clean people.

trying2win
11-19-2002, 03:24 AM
Lefty:

Hee, hee, hee...Yes, I remember that old saying about the windows cleaning the people. I still get a kick out of it after all these years.

Probably some of the readers here, can relate to some of those old racetrack sayings.

smf
11-19-2002, 04:51 AM
Someone asks how was your day at the track, the sad response is...

"I asked for a hot dog and a coke, and they gave me a coke and a hot dog".

Heard that on Gary West's show a few years back.

kitts
11-19-2002, 12:23 PM
I'm fond of:
"often wrong but never in doubt."

gillenr
11-19-2002, 12:44 PM
Dear Lord,
Please let me break out even - I need the money.

Lefty
11-19-2002, 12:51 PM
Heard this at ELP back in the 50's. Lady comes up to a man and front of me and grabs him and yells for security.
Man says: Sweety, I'm "live" in the Double. If I hit it i'll pay everything I owe you."

Lencal555
11-27-2002, 02:42 PM
"You know you have the wrong horse when he comes on to the track and the jockey is holding a flashlight"

"I follow the horses, unfortunately many of the horses I follow...follow other horses"

:) :)

Lencal555
11-27-2002, 02:46 PM
A guy has a heart attack at Belmont after the first race, the EMT personnnel arrive and check him out. One EMT ask's the other, "Is he alive", the other EMT takes a scrap of paper from the victim's hand looks at it and relpies..."Only in the double" !

witchdoctor
11-27-2002, 07:41 PM
"No one ever bet enough on a winning horse." This was before the recent pick 6 scandal.

Lefty
11-29-2002, 01:19 PM
Here's one told to me over 30 yrs ago: "I follow the horses but the horses I follow, follow the horses"

Tom
11-29-2002, 05:11 PM
A guy goes to the track every day and bets $2 on the first race.
He wins and parlays it into the second race. He wins again and so he parlays again. By the ninth race, he has hit every race in the parlay and now has to bet $10,000 on the favorite in the finally. His horse makes a big run and ends up losing in a photo.
On his way out of the track, he runs into a buddy who aske him how he did today.
Same old thing,: he replies. "Lost two bucks!"

Lencal555
11-30-2002, 01:54 PM
TOM...I heard your above post 40 years ago, and do you know what ? It is still one of the best horse racing quotes ever. Thanks so much for sharing...Lenny

trying2win
12-01-2002, 01:56 AM
Just remembered a few more:


---Saw this one in a cartoon on a magazine page:

There were originally 3 photos on a mantle...a horse player, his wife and his mother-in-law. The cartoon shows the horseplayer about to replace the photo of his mother-in-law with a photo of a thoroughbred. The dialogue in the cartoon, shows the wife saying something like: "Why are you taking that picture of my mother away and replacing it with a picture of a horse?"...The horse player replied..."Well, she didn't pay $47.20 to win!".

---You've heard of that expression..."Easy come, easy go". At the track, it's more like "Hard come, easy go.

---I remember asking a bettor how he made out at the track one day. He replied: "If I didn't have bad luck, I wouldn't have any luck at all!"

Dan Montilion
12-01-2002, 05:35 AM
Overheard this in the Golden Gate Fields clubhouse...

How ya doin today?

Oh man, I'm the Rodney King of horse racing. Their beating the &*%$ outta me.

Mid 90's a trainer in NoCal had good fortune running maidens that had already won at unrecognized tracks...

Sitting in my box my buddy and I both had a wager on a suspected bush track horse. Said horse goes nuts behing the starting gate. And My friend looks at me with his best dead pan and says "I guess they don't have starting gates in Utah."

Used to put on breakfast seminars with the late Ron Cox. Ron let the crowd know his best gamble of the day. The horse wins and in our box we are congatulating each other, when one of the morning attendees comes running over with an exasperated look on his face and says "what are you guys celebrating?" Ron looks at him and says well this was the best gamble of the day. The attendee looks at his program and slaps his head and says "Damn. I wrote down BB for best bet this morning and when I read it just now I thought it meant Bad Bet"

A novice player walks up to the mutuel window and asks for a single with all in the double. Clerks says that'll be $24. Player says no its not, yesterday it was only $14.

After putting on a teaching seminar at Bay Meadows for the long since defunct Racing Times. A Guy comes up to me wild eyed and yells "I challenge you, I'm the greatest, I can read minds of people and horses." While saying this nonesense has his hands in front of his eyes wiggling his fingures in his best hokus pokus. So I say "read minds? How do you do with women?"

Lencal555
12-01-2002, 10:29 AM
Like the time I came home and told my bride of 44 years that my barber gave me a horse that was so good, I should bet him even if he is scratched ! And my wife retorted" if your barber knows so much about the nag's...how come he is cutting hair" ??:)

Tom
12-01-2002, 10:31 AM
A guy tapped out at the track, so the next day when he went, he could only make mind bets. He lost his mind.

Lencal555
12-01-2002, 02:14 PM
Two horses are talking in the barn, and one say's to the other..."If I win the stakes race today, my trainer promised me two bails of hay...and that ain't money":)

JimG
12-01-2002, 03:52 PM
Dan,

Welcome to the board. I have enjoyed reading your take on the NoCal scene in the Goldstein Report. Incidentally, I read about Ron Cox in the New Expert Handicappers many years ago and understand he was extremely well thought of by all.

Jim

Dan Montilion
12-01-2002, 04:18 PM
JimG

Thanks for the welcome and kind words. It seems that this site and contributers are on such a higher level than any other similar site, I'm just proud to be a small part of it. Ron Cox was the real deal. I was so lucky to have him as a mentor.

Dan

Tom
12-01-2002, 05:28 PM
A horse gets in line at the sellers window and when his turn comes, he says to the seller"50 bucks to win...on me!"
The seller looks dub-founded and shkes his head.
"What's the matter?" asks the horse. "Can't believe a horse can talk?"
"No, no," replies the seller. "I can't believe you think you can get by the two!"

MV McKee
12-12-2002, 04:54 AM
TRUE STORY:
I was at LesBois (Boise) racetrack back in, well, I don't remember when. It was a day of primarily QH Futurity Trials, and in the 3rd or 4th Race there was an incident in the starting gate and a couple of the jockeys were injured, among them was a jockey named Jim Balls (real name). About 10 minutes later, while announcing the changes for the upcoming race, the track announcer (without so much as a hint of a chuckle) said over the loudspeaker "Please scratch Balls on the 7 horse". Needless to say, I declined. The true punchline here is that the replacement jockey was (again, real name) named Joe Bone. I thought you could only replace Balls with Bone in Sweden....or maybe the Mayo Clinic......certainly not Boise.