Sidebar

[Augenj]

Originally Posted by Augenj

It was the early 70's and I was a mainframe computer operator working my way into programming by taking a COBOL class. A fellow operator challenged me to write a program for the horses, Hollywood Park being nearby. It was a primitive program using speed and finish only. I dry ran it for a couple of days and it showed profit. I was getting interested now.

The only way we could bet was to rush over there for the 4th race for the $5 exacta bet. It was almost always a sprint race on the dirt, a very fast dirt surface. Surprisingly, we were hitting $5 exacta boxes a couple times a week. Then one day, a $5 exacta box bet won $1,327.50, a fortune at the time. I had three tickets on it, one for me, one for another operator, and another for a group of operations people. Suddenly, I knew it all, unfortunately.

I would come back to earth after that when I bet whole cards on Saturdays. Hindsight would tell me later that dirt sprints on very fast surfaces are not the same as the many other distances and surfaces. Jockeys, trainers, class, workouts, pace, etc, also mattered. Decades later, personal computers were finally fast and big enough to do a proper analysis on large data bases downloaded from the Internet. It's been a humbling journey.

There was another story that goes with this one. I had given out my exacta picks to another operations lady. Her husband wanted to replace one of my horses with another horse and told his son to do that. He mistakenly bet it my way, realized his mistake, and tried to get the teller to take it back. He wouldn't take it but left it near the window in case somebody else would purchase it. Just before post time, some guy did buy it. His son got his money back and quickly bet the other horse like his dad wanted him to. I'm sure there was angst, regrets, and depression after this.