CBedo
06-29-2009, 02:38 AM
First off, thanks to everyone who contributed to a great trip. From all of you on the board who gave me hints and tips on how to enjoy Hol, to Vic, Gayle in the Hollywood marketing department, Gayle in the elevator, Lawrence giving us great tables in the turf club to the wait staff and tellers. It was a great trip (so so betting wise).
I was at the track Thursday, Friday & Saturday with my girlfriend making it Friday & Saturday.
THURSDAY
I flew in Thursday morning and drove straight to the track. I decided to do go the general admission route on Thursday (free I was happy to find) and hung out all over the place, mainly outside on track level. Hanging out on the rail was great, and I met lots of interesting characters, especially when I busted out my computer. I wish I had a dollar for every time someone asked me who I liked. I was lucky enough to get a chance to meet Gayle from the Hollywood marketing department. She took me into the paddock area for the feature race (an allowance on Thursday), and we got a chance to talk about horses. She has a great memory of horses she has seen run and knows quite a bit about the pedigrees. I wish I remembered half as much about past races as she does (thank goodness for Stable Alert). When the horses left the paddock for the track, we headed for the rail (in front of the winners circle right before the finish line). I got a chance to see the cushion track up close and personal. We discussed the makeup of the track and you could really see the fiber and rubber pieces in the track. Unfortunately, the winner knocked me out of the pick 4, but other than that, it was a great experience.
From a betting standpoint, Thursday pretty much sucked. All my exactas ran one three, when I played a double, I'd hit the first and miss the second leg, and any longshot I used underneath won and the ones I used on top ran second or third. The only monetarily redeeeming portion of the day was when I couldn't get hold of my girlfriend to see if she was ready to meet me, I headed over to the casino, and found a bunch of horseplayers who weren't very good poker players. I made enough in one hour to makeup for my day's losses, and pay for my flight, hotel, and food for the entire weekend.
FRIDAY
Vic Stauffer was kind enough to leave us turf club passes for Friday night racing, and Lawrence gave us a great table right on the finish line. I was a bit surpised that there weren't more people there for a Friday (the grandstand seemed more populated), but it made for short lines to wager, and great service from the wait staff.
My girlfriend is pretty new to horse racing, but she has established a fun and not all together terrible strategy of wagering. She looks at the names, the jockey colors, the horse and then balances that with the bar charts on the free brisnet sheets at the track (speed and class usually) along with the pace pal ratings and comments. She picks 2 horses and I tell her which one I like the best (more on win probability, but hopefully with a bit of value), and then she bet $2 across the board on it. She cashed most of the races (lost money on a few), but ended up about 10 bucks for the day. For me, it was a day of low priced overlays. I didn't play any doubles or pick 3s and only played a few exactas. I only made 4 win bets, but cashed 3 of them. For fun, I played a $4 early pick 4 ticket and was alive in the last leg, and it looked like I got home my 7/1 single, but when I saw the inquiry and the head on view, I knew it was coming down, and sure enough, I was out $4, hehe.
After the races, we headed to the end of the stands and watched the Atomic Punks, an early Van Halen cover band. They were awesome and the lead guy looked and sounded just like David Lee Roth. Watching the band and the crowd provided awesome enertainment!
SATURDAY
We hadn't planned on going to the track Saturday, but when I realized Zenyatta was running, I changed my mind. Gayle had given me turf club passes for Saturday and Lawrence gave us the same table we had on Friday night. The turf club was much more busy Saturday, but it was a little sad that we were clearly the youngest (and I'm almost 40) couple in the turf club--not a good sign for the future of racing! Mr. Stauffer was kind enough to invite us up to watch the first race from the booth. What a great view. Vic was awesome and let my girlfriend shoot some video of him doing the race call (I'll try to post a shot from the video later). The only bad part was that I didn't really have a good grasp of the race and told my girlfriend "I don't know who will win, but I GUARANTEE the 1 won't win--OOPS, 28 dollar winner that I talked her off of, haha.
That was kind of how the whole beginning of the day went. I either really didn't have much clue about a race, or had no insight different from the public. I knew this beforehand, but it didn't stop me from trying to spread in some exotics in the wide open races and missing three trifectas due to missing one horse in each with my horses running 1 3 4 or 1 2 4 each time. Zenyatta is a beautiful specimen, and she was quite workman like in her appearance. I had made a couple small wagers on others just in case she didn't fire, while my girlfriend made her biggest bet of the day, $5.00 on Zenyatta. She said if she was watching a future hall of famer, she wanted to be able to say she bet on her! I was having a terrible day until the sixth where I really liked De Car Guy. I keyed him in the top two spots with three horses, and when the favorite ran out, I had a 19 dollar winner, a 40 dollar exacta, and a 186 dollar trifecta, as well as being alive to three horses in the next race for the double. The next race thought the 6 & 8 were standouts but a friend of mine had scared me with the favorite so I had included him on the bottom of my exacta tickets. When they came down the stretch, it was only a matter of which one would run first and which would complete the exacta. The longer odds of the two got up at the wire and I had cashed a 16 dollar winner, a 28 dollar exacta and a 151 dollar double. What had been a brutal day turned into an awesome one in the matter of about 25 minutes.
It was the perfect ending to a great trip. Three days of live racing with three different flavors of people at the track. I must say that in this day and age where racing for me is pretty solitary, sitting at home with tvs and computers, I had forgotten how much fun and social being at the races live can be. I don't think I could deal with it every day, but I'm looking forward to planning my next trip to a track I haven't been to before. :ThmbUp: :ThmbUp:
I was at the track Thursday, Friday & Saturday with my girlfriend making it Friday & Saturday.
THURSDAY
I flew in Thursday morning and drove straight to the track. I decided to do go the general admission route on Thursday (free I was happy to find) and hung out all over the place, mainly outside on track level. Hanging out on the rail was great, and I met lots of interesting characters, especially when I busted out my computer. I wish I had a dollar for every time someone asked me who I liked. I was lucky enough to get a chance to meet Gayle from the Hollywood marketing department. She took me into the paddock area for the feature race (an allowance on Thursday), and we got a chance to talk about horses. She has a great memory of horses she has seen run and knows quite a bit about the pedigrees. I wish I remembered half as much about past races as she does (thank goodness for Stable Alert). When the horses left the paddock for the track, we headed for the rail (in front of the winners circle right before the finish line). I got a chance to see the cushion track up close and personal. We discussed the makeup of the track and you could really see the fiber and rubber pieces in the track. Unfortunately, the winner knocked me out of the pick 4, but other than that, it was a great experience.
From a betting standpoint, Thursday pretty much sucked. All my exactas ran one three, when I played a double, I'd hit the first and miss the second leg, and any longshot I used underneath won and the ones I used on top ran second or third. The only monetarily redeeeming portion of the day was when I couldn't get hold of my girlfriend to see if she was ready to meet me, I headed over to the casino, and found a bunch of horseplayers who weren't very good poker players. I made enough in one hour to makeup for my day's losses, and pay for my flight, hotel, and food for the entire weekend.
FRIDAY
Vic Stauffer was kind enough to leave us turf club passes for Friday night racing, and Lawrence gave us a great table right on the finish line. I was a bit surpised that there weren't more people there for a Friday (the grandstand seemed more populated), but it made for short lines to wager, and great service from the wait staff.
My girlfriend is pretty new to horse racing, but she has established a fun and not all together terrible strategy of wagering. She looks at the names, the jockey colors, the horse and then balances that with the bar charts on the free brisnet sheets at the track (speed and class usually) along with the pace pal ratings and comments. She picks 2 horses and I tell her which one I like the best (more on win probability, but hopefully with a bit of value), and then she bet $2 across the board on it. She cashed most of the races (lost money on a few), but ended up about 10 bucks for the day. For me, it was a day of low priced overlays. I didn't play any doubles or pick 3s and only played a few exactas. I only made 4 win bets, but cashed 3 of them. For fun, I played a $4 early pick 4 ticket and was alive in the last leg, and it looked like I got home my 7/1 single, but when I saw the inquiry and the head on view, I knew it was coming down, and sure enough, I was out $4, hehe.
After the races, we headed to the end of the stands and watched the Atomic Punks, an early Van Halen cover band. They were awesome and the lead guy looked and sounded just like David Lee Roth. Watching the band and the crowd provided awesome enertainment!
SATURDAY
We hadn't planned on going to the track Saturday, but when I realized Zenyatta was running, I changed my mind. Gayle had given me turf club passes for Saturday and Lawrence gave us the same table we had on Friday night. The turf club was much more busy Saturday, but it was a little sad that we were clearly the youngest (and I'm almost 40) couple in the turf club--not a good sign for the future of racing! Mr. Stauffer was kind enough to invite us up to watch the first race from the booth. What a great view. Vic was awesome and let my girlfriend shoot some video of him doing the race call (I'll try to post a shot from the video later). The only bad part was that I didn't really have a good grasp of the race and told my girlfriend "I don't know who will win, but I GUARANTEE the 1 won't win--OOPS, 28 dollar winner that I talked her off of, haha.
That was kind of how the whole beginning of the day went. I either really didn't have much clue about a race, or had no insight different from the public. I knew this beforehand, but it didn't stop me from trying to spread in some exotics in the wide open races and missing three trifectas due to missing one horse in each with my horses running 1 3 4 or 1 2 4 each time. Zenyatta is a beautiful specimen, and she was quite workman like in her appearance. I had made a couple small wagers on others just in case she didn't fire, while my girlfriend made her biggest bet of the day, $5.00 on Zenyatta. She said if she was watching a future hall of famer, she wanted to be able to say she bet on her! I was having a terrible day until the sixth where I really liked De Car Guy. I keyed him in the top two spots with three horses, and when the favorite ran out, I had a 19 dollar winner, a 40 dollar exacta, and a 186 dollar trifecta, as well as being alive to three horses in the next race for the double. The next race thought the 6 & 8 were standouts but a friend of mine had scared me with the favorite so I had included him on the bottom of my exacta tickets. When they came down the stretch, it was only a matter of which one would run first and which would complete the exacta. The longer odds of the two got up at the wire and I had cashed a 16 dollar winner, a 28 dollar exacta and a 151 dollar double. What had been a brutal day turned into an awesome one in the matter of about 25 minutes.
It was the perfect ending to a great trip. Three days of live racing with three different flavors of people at the track. I must say that in this day and age where racing for me is pretty solitary, sitting at home with tvs and computers, I had forgotten how much fun and social being at the races live can be. I don't think I could deal with it every day, but I'm looking forward to planning my next trip to a track I haven't been to before. :ThmbUp: :ThmbUp: