When Did You Know You Were Hooked?

[michiken]

Back in the day.....

I remember getting my first computer, a 2400 baud modem and signing up for Prodigy. I was keeping figs for my local track when simulcasting first came to Detroit Race Course. I was in heaven because I had been occasionally driving over to Windsor because they offered more races and now I could stay home in my own backyard.

I thought to myself, how am I going to keep figs for the simulcast tracks I like?

Then I heard about bris figs, I thought I would give them a try and signed up. This had to be in the late 80s I would guess.

One weekend I decided to play a track I had never seen before, it was Turfway Park. The superfast download on that modem seemed to take forever. I proceeded to print out my report from my customized software - the same sheet I post here as pdfs.

Turfway was still a dirt surface and the weather was ugly as hell on the monitor. You could hardly see the horses or saddlecloths.

Since I had hit a trifecta at Pimlico and was up over 300 bucks (alot back then), I scanned my report and decided that it was a two horse race - EARLY EARLY speed.

Both horses were above 6-1. Since I was playing tri's, I was looking for a horse to run third and decided on the 8 who had a bris late pace fig of 95 which was 10 points higher than the rest of the field - he had a low speed fig but I decided to play small tickets. It was kind of my breakin with these type of pace and speed figs.

I decided to combine my play with the favorite generating three 8 dollar tickets in the form A/BC/BCD for a total of $24. My A horse was one of my 6-1 shots. The B and C horses were the favorite and the other 6-1 plus shot. The D horse was the power closer.

Three horses entered the stretch being the A-B and 4/5 favorite. The fav coughs it up in midstretch being trapped in the mud on the rail. He fades badly. Now my two shots are running 1-2 right down to the wire. A second later my 8 crosses the line in third at huge, enormous odds - one of those Turfway specials at something like 78-1.

It's a PHOTO! and I am praying for my A horse to be the winner! Stupid me didn't backwheel the B on top!!!

I swear I had to wait a half an hour and thoughts of a dead heat consoled me as I would get part of the payoff. I sat nervously in the chair when they put up my A horse first.

I went to the IRS line to cash three $2500 tri tickets! The teller looked at me like I was absolutely insane to have won so much on 3 small tickets. "Kid, I have been playing the ponies for 50 years and have never even come close to that". I smiled and walked away and knew I was hooked!

What's your story?

[Robert Goren]

I was born hooked. I was following horse racing the paper as teenager (making paper bets) long before I visited a track or made a real bet.

[MickJ26]

My father and both my grandfathers were horseplayers. My maternal grandfather told me stories of War Admiral and Seabiscuit. I was hooked first by Easy Goer and then Holy Bull.

[Overlay]

Sneaking out of my second post-college office job at 30th Street and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan in mid-morning, in mid-January, in my shirtsleeves (so that my boss wouldn't notice me putting my coat on), to get over to the nearest OTB to get bets down on Aqueduct, and trying to get back before anyone noticed I was gone.

[jognlope]

Lemon Drop Kid a few feet away going onto track.

[thaskalos]

It first occurred to me that I might be hooked on this game, in the mid 1980s...

I would handicap the Arlington Park turf races from the night before, and, whenever I would sense the threat of an overnight rain storm - like thunder, or lightning - I would go outside, and spend the late night hours sniffing the air like a bloodhound...wondering if the rains would come...which would mean that the next day's turf races would be moved to the main track...and I would have to re-handicap the races for the dirt surface.

[wisconsin]

My dad owned pacers in the '70's, and I spent many nights at the track. Hooked by 3rd grade.

[Horseplayersbet.com]

I had no choice, I was kidnapped and brainwashed every weekend as far back as I can remember. Probably got addicted to the second hand smoke at Greenwood as well in the mid 60's when I was 3 or 4.

[horses4courses]

I moved to Ireland from Chicago in 1968. I was 10 years old.

A year later, after seeing races on TV, and watching various family members follow horse racing with a passion,
I got a birthday present of the 1968 Form Book. It was a publication containing hundreds of pages of past performances, and was about 4 inches thick. That was it.....I spent hours and hours tracking the history of horses running in upcoming races.

That year, too, I made my first successful wager.
One Saturday afternoon, two horses were running at our local track, Leopardstown, and I liked their chances. Both trained by the late Seamus McGrath, the horse's names were Laurence O and Levmoss. The latter went on to win the Prix de L'Arc in Paris that October.

Needless to say, both won that day, and paid pretty well. My bets were small, probably about $3 total - 2 win bets and a small parlay.
My $3 got me close to $30 back. I was hooked.

I bought a few Prize Bonds with my winnings, which I still have to this day.
They are a State-run investment scheme, similar to a monthly lottery.
People invest a lot of money in them over there. They never expire.
Never have hit anything with them, but every month I have a shot at a seven figure prize.

Not a bad introduction to the game at a young age, and it has been a great ride ever since.

[joanied]

The instant Carry Back crossed the finish line in the Kentucky Derby

[strapper]

Growing up 2 blocks from the New Orleans' Fair Grounds, riding my bike as an 8-year-old and peering through the chainlink fence at that mysterious place with the horses. We'd pick up old programs and mutuel tickets and bring them home to peruse and "play racehorse". I would be Santiago, a grey son of Oil Capital; my friends the twins would pick a horse to be and we'd race a few yards down the middle of the street.

[Jasonm921]

I was dragged to OTB by my dad after school when I was maybe 7 or 8 and I would take a stack of the OTB daily entry sheets and attempt to make the perfect paper airplane while inhaling smoke from about 40 cigars. I remember a horse that always seemed to run when I was there, never saw him as there was no video in otb then, just a static deep male voice that came over the speakers every 30 minutes with a call. The horse was named "Raise a Beat", a Peter Ferriola trainee. He may have been a claimer (not really sure) but to me he was like Secretariat. He always seemed to win when I was there. I would ask my dad if he was running and oddly enough that became my favorite horse for what ever reason. I can't find anything on him on the internet and for all I know he may have won a bottom level claiming race once or twice but to me, at the time, he was the best horse in the world and I had never even seen him race in person or on TV. Beside his owner, I may be the only one who remembers his name but to that school kid in the mid 80's that horse could have beaten Man O' War or Secretariat. That is how I got hooked.

[classhandicapper]

The doctor spanked my behind, I took my first breath, and cried. Some things are in your genes.

[Broad Brush]

A good thread.

My father was a horseplayer, so I grew up at the track. I always loved watching the horses; but, I did not take an interest in handicapping until age 9. He taught me to read the Form and I studied and practiced for months. Finally after watching Big Red win the Derby and Preakness and "Our Native" finish third both times, I came
to the "brilliant" conclusion that he should be tough to beat in the Ohio Derby
and bet $4 to win (dad booked it). He won and I was on my way.

[Johnny V]

I was hooked the first day I went to the track as a teenager. I really realized that I was hooked when I used to stand in front of the candy store at 5AM waiting for the stack of Forms thrown from the delivery truck with a bunch of other hooked on racing guys.
I remember one time driving all over at zero dark thirty AM looking for a Form and found this candy store owned by a guy from India who did not have the Form but who had a cousin that owned a candy store at the other end of town. I paid the guy to close up and drive with me to his cousin's store to get the Form.