there is a difference between "perk", such as dinners, shows, free rooms.........and having a different rake at the same table.

You forgot about the soap, shampoo, towels, and free private jets. ;)

can a movie be underrated? This one was always compared to Goodfellas but its its own beast.

Got a great story about Pesci/Casino and Mike Smith that I will share. I happened to be staying at Mikes when after the race day was done we were driving back to his place, this was about 2004 or so. There was a horse named "Pesci" that Wesley War trained, not sure if it was owned by Joe Pesci or not but there was some kind of association, maybe one of his friends owned it. So Mike checks his messages and Joe Pesci leaves him a message that went something like this "Hey so your riding Pesci today, um look if you dont win that ****ing race i am going to put your ****ing head in a vice and pop it like a grape, you better not **** this up you mother ****er", something like that but completely in character from the vice scene. It was so classic.

Horse won by like 8.

https://www.equibase.com/premium/cha...03&cy=USA&rn=2

Funny story. :lol:

I agree 100%.

Being compared to Goodfellas kind of hurt that movie's standings, but it's very good. It just got a bad trip. ;)

The real "Ace" had a gambling web page for awhile until he passed away. I don't think he was much of a fan of betting horses based on the questions and answers that were on the site at the time.

Jerry Brown had a very interesting interview with Steve Byk talking about Lasix, but then also discussing the last-second CAW wagers and how they're killing value in the game.

There's a link to it on the Thorograph forum (I don't see it in the At the Races archives but it was on August 29th).

Nice, should be a good listen. Link here:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/76fid4..._Eric.mp3/file

They made a lot of good points and suggestions, but some of the downsides of running without Lasix mentioned bordered on hyperbole. The political climate may be tougher than it used to be, but we ran dirt races in the US without Lasix for decades. It's not like this is totally uncharted territory

Also, if we are truly interested in the welfare of horses that are repeat bleeders, we wouldn't run them with Lasix for "their own good". We'd retire them. That's all about money.

The issue with the computer players has already been discussed to death. Most don't mind that they use sophisticated math to try to gain an edge. It's mostly about the rebates and access to pool data.

Being able to make 12,800 dollars worth of exotic bets in 1.2 seconds is also a major beef.

...................



the tracks could absolutely solve this problem very easily

all they have to do is this:

instead of announcing one minute to post:

they announce one minute to last call (like a bar)

this will mean that no bets can be taken after one minute before the race

big late bettors will still be able to get off big bets with 10 seconds left and the odds will still be greatly affected by this

but it will eliminate the perception of something shady going on





why don't they solve the problem?




because racetrack management is famous for not solving problems or taking years to solve them when the least little bit of ingenuity could solve them quickly






scratch the 1a he announces over a fading sound system with a lot of static - but the 1 still shows on the tote because the 1b was running - many didn't know the 1a was scratched - how many decades before they solved that problem?




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