I retell this story anytime anyone asks and it may be somewhat embellished in the retelling here but ...
Sometime in the spring meet at Fort Erie in 1973 I spent a weekend in a cheap motel, as I usually did twice each year, 'capping the sore and lame. On a muddy track that weekend, a nag named Maggie Muggins was entered in a low class event. She was the only mare that showed any mud ability so I bet her to place and wheeled her on top in the exactor. She won from behind in the sticky red goo that was the FE surface at the time and paid almost $70 to win. The exactor was well over $250 and the place was $30ish and as I recall I had over $300 after the race where I only had about $15 before the race. I think at the time I was making $125 a week.
Fort Erie, the town, is across the Niagara River from Buffalo, NY, and got a good complement of US and Canadian punters in the day. In the clubhouse they had a cigar store. You could buy one and even smoke it inside and so I did. A big stinky one that no one could ever finish. Since I was flush I figured that it was $2.50 well spent.
In a subsequent race, the Nassau Stakes, an 8 1/2f grass race for females, there was a filly named Lady Shooter who had just set the track record for 5f on the grass at Woodbine. She was 14-1. I bet $100 to win and $200 to place and was counting my money as I watched her lead into the stretch. She got nosed and nodded into 3rd.
I stubbed out the cigar and went home.
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The great menace to progress is not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge - Daniel J. Boorstin
The takers get the honey, the givers sing the blues - Robin Trower, Too Rolling Stoned - 1974
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