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Old 07-29-2009, 11:53 PM   #1
Canadian
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What's your biggest mistake.... that hit!!??

Strangest thing happened yesturday. I was down at the simulcast betting some B-harness tracks on a tuesday night. I was up about 40... or maybe I just had 40 left to lose and ready to leave. It was race 5 at Northfield Park and I spotted a sweet driver change that I was sure was going to win.... Almost 3-1. So I went to the terminal bet the 40 to win on the 5 and got ready to see if my trotter was going to get away clean. He did...... got away second and I thought I had an easy winner..... then his odds popped up under the number and it read 30-1!!! I couldn't believe it..... I glanced quickly at the program and realized I bet the wrong horse!! I meant the 6 and bet the 5 (Just as I'm typing this I realize it must have been because it was race 5)..... I was disgusted... there was no way the 5 was going to keep up..... He had Charles Smith Jr driving..... I have a rule against betting on anything Charles Smith Jr drives......but he did..... a coulple of horses broke that would have beat him. My 6 finished 3rd......... Again.... I couldn't believe it......over $1200 I made on that mistake. What a night.

So does anyone have any similar tales? And for a laugh check out race 5 at Northfield last night.

Last edited by Canadian; 07-29-2009 at 11:55 PM.
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Old 07-30-2009, 12:09 AM   #2
lamboguy
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i was playing poker at the Bally's hotel on the corner of las vegas blvd and flamingo, a guy gives me a tip on a horse running that night at garden state racetrack in new jersey. he said bet the 3 horse in the fifth race. i went to the window and looked up the horse and thought it was 5013. the teller punched out the next race. the horse that the guy gave me happened to win the race and paid something like $8.00. i wound up bettting the wrong race and the wrong horse i bet paid $96 to win.i had $10 across on the horse. it was the bigest winning price i have ever cashed to this day i think! that was about 25 years ago.
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Old 07-30-2009, 12:10 AM   #3
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It's funny, that I was thinking about this all day. I can not recall ever making a mistake on a ticket and winning, but I know that I have made many mistakes that cost me money.

Today while at the track I meant to bet on Suffolks 4th race, after I made my Monmouth bets. Somehow I didn't switch tracks and bet Monmouths 4th instead. Of course had I bet the correct track, I would have cashed over $150.00.

money
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Old 07-30-2009, 05:33 AM   #4
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This didn't happen to me but to one of my best buddies about 15 yrs. ago. He always drank at the track because he only went once in awhile to have a good time. He was pretty well tanked up and bought a $1 tri box at PP, or so he thought. The tri lost and he threw the ticket on the table. His uncle picked up the ticket to check it and found he had bet the Meadowlands instead of PP. The race was just coming up and we sat there and watched the tri win and pay $24,000. for a duece.
Being drunk, he insisted on not leaving without his money. We tried to talk to him but he wasn't hearing it and got a 10 percenter to cash it. Not only pd the guy about $1,200. but lost the 3 grand they withheld.
Because he was drunk he gave away 4 grand but on the other hand if he wasn't drunk he wouldn't have hit it.
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Old 07-30-2009, 06:01 AM   #5
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Maybe 2 years ago my wife wanted to go to Saratoga. She doesn't know anything about betting and I always tell her to just bet names and birthdays after she asks which horses I think have a good chance. So she gets her $20 voucher for the day. In the first race I tell her I like the 1 and the 6 so she should bet a birthday exacta box. Our grandson was born 6/17 so I told her to go up and ask for a $1 exacta box of 1,6,7. She comes back to the table and has a $2 tri box. Evidently she just told the teller to box 1,6,7 - teller asks tri? - sure - $1 or $2? - 2 - so she comes back having spent $12 of her $20 on the first race. Of course it hits and she doesn't know because she still hasn't learned how to follow a race. Stupid thing comes back about $250. If she had played what I told her she would have been happy with the $35 she would have had from the $1 exacta. Oh well, she hit two more tri's that day and came home over $500 ahead. My stories are generally in the other direction. The last one was last fall when I missed a $1,900 tri at Keeneland because I didn't look closely at the ticket and the teller gave me race 3 instead of race 6. The numbers were right and the amount was right but I didn't check the race number, duh!
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Old 07-30-2009, 10:35 AM   #6
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This is not so much a big win ,but a friend of mine we were at Fort Erie ,he went to bet $100 on a horse ,teller prints the ticket,the horse loses .he gets ready to throw out his ticket and the realized the teller printed a $100 voucher in stead.
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Old 07-30-2009, 11:52 AM   #7
samyn on the green
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no program numbers

A few years ago I was out in Vegas on one of these frequent excursions I go on. As much as I like playing horses I am also a card player going back to 1981. When I was 5 years old I played gin rummy just about everyday with Rose Casini and her elderly friends who used to babysit me.


For years I have been making money playing blackjack using my own personal martingale system, while the house had come close, they had not busted me out in years. As my winning streak grew year after year my confidence did not identify the danger of a big bust out while using my Martingale system. This was the day things went haywire for me in blackjack for the first time in a long time.

I had a large bet down after winning a bunch of hands in a row just a few minutes after arriving from the airport. I got dealt a pair of 6's which I split because the dealer had showed a bust card. Then unbelievably I got dealt another 6 and then yet another. So I was split four ways to the dealers bust card. The way things worked out I ended up doubling two of the hands and had a significant portion of my bankroll on the table. Long story short but the horror of defeat rushed over me and the dealer pulls a twenty one from out of nowhere. So now I was down and out. I went on tilt and lost the rest of the bankroll shortly after this bizarre hand just thirty minutes after arriving from New York. Dejected and rejected I moseyed over to the sports book to play my last $5 before I turned this gambling trip into a hike to Red Rock Canyon. With the bankroll brutalized I needed to walk off the pain/kill time. As I last ditch effort I sit down in the sports book to look at the racing form and try to make something out of nothing.

It was a Tuesday and 5 MTP to a race at Colonial downs. On Tuesday the Vegas racing form does not have program numbers only names. Quickly looking at the form the third horse down looked tremendous on paper. Form, class, speed and nice works. I look up and the horse is 75-1! What a great price! I run up there to the tellers and bet my last $5. Then I go back to the seat and notice my huge mistake. There was an entry and the 3 that I thought was 75-1 was actually the 4 horse One Genius who was returning from a 7 month layoff and was first time turf coming off horrible races while stepping up in class.

The horse I thought I was betting at 75-1 was actually the 6-5 chalk. As we move to post time the number 4 horse I am now stuck with clicks up to 99-1. Not only did I lose my ass at blackjack with uncharacteristic liberal play but now I am betting my last $5 like a moron on the wrong horses in the sportsbook.

They break from the gate and I have my head in my hands as I am mumbling some gibberish to myself. The 6-5 chalk takes the lead with the 4 horse One Genius tracking the pace in the pocket. They stay that way around the clubhouse turn and along the backside.

As they turn for home One Genius is still in the race. One Genius switches out and I switch out from the seat to the aisle of the sports book. I drop to my knees and start pounding the floor with both fists as I am yelling as loud as I could for One Genius to get up. This was championship rooting drawn from my days at a dirty OTB in Queens, you know the kind of rooting that offends people. It was a nip and tuck duel for the entire length of the stretch with the chalk and One Genius head bobbing for what seemed like forever.


By the slimmest of margins one Genius scores by a zop in a very dirty photo. The feeling came over me when I knew I won like the feeling you get when you ride the Cyclone in Coney Island for the first time. It was a huge thrill almost like the adrenaline rush you feel when you get away from someone that is trying to kill you if you have ever experienced that. I was out of my mind in the sports book and the whole room was looking at the spectacle I had made of myself. When they post the prices I could not believe it. One Genius paid $236 to win. I have hit much bigger tickets and have done so with thought, handicapping, shrewdness and logic but this mistake hit was the biggest thrill I have ever had in horseplaying.


When someone who watched my hysterics stopped me after I cashed how did I pick this crazy 99-1 horse? I paused for a nanosecond and was going to tell him about the program numbers/mistake. But them off the cuff I told him the horse was bred for grass and I knew he would run on grass and he was worth a shot at that price. Dumb luck is highly underrated.

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Old 07-30-2009, 01:00 PM   #8
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I've mentioned this before on another thread, but one time I handicapped a race for the dirt even though it was on the grass. It was the first part of the win 4. I used three horses in that race, and one of them wound up winning through disqualification.

My win four ticket was 3 by 4 by 2 by 2 costing $48 for a buck base. The other three parts came in and I wound up getting the pool which was over $27,000.

I didn't realize the race was on the grass until the horse's starting loading on TV.

I'm not sure what my selections would have been in that first leg since it was a maiden race, and many horses had zero turf experience. I may have had four or five plays in the race, and it might have changed the way I played the race, and I'm not entirely sure I would have used the winner either.
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Old 07-30-2009, 01:32 PM   #9
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I hit the Barbaro Preakness trifecta (I was hoping he would bounce not break down). I'm strictly a win bettor, but it was the Preakness, so I went a bit nuts. Bernardini and Sweetnorthernsaint were logical and I was hoping Like Now could hang for third. I made a straight trifecta bet. After the injury and the confusion I checked my ticket and saw that I had placed the 3 horse, Hemmingway's Key, third and not Like Now.

A complete goof on my part that netted me my biggest score ever. I'm guessing the error was due to my inexperience with exotics and confusing program numbers: Hemmingway's Key was the horse.
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Old 07-30-2009, 01:52 PM   #10
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"This was championship rooting drawn from my days at a dirty OTB in Queens, you know the kind of rooting that offends people..."

Now that is good stuff.. Laughed out loud..

Ez
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Old 07-30-2009, 02:14 PM   #11
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Was betting a Pick-3 at Belmont in 1999 during the Spring Meet. I was studying the form really hard. The horse with the #1 post position was at the top of the form but his number was #2. The number #1 was an entry trained by Leo O'Brien--with a morning line of 20/1. In the pick-3 I used the number one, when I meant to bet the saddle cloth #2. One of the Leo O'Brien horses won (it was a turf race of course) and the entry was 55 to 1. Pick 3 returned more than $2 or $3k (had it for a nickel).

There is a flip-side, which is the mispunched ticket. And there is a karma element--I've seriously lost money on mispunched tickets since this score. Humility and diligence.
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Old 07-30-2009, 02:16 PM   #12
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Good story Samyn on the Green.

I've been wagering from home the past few years, which has greatly cut down on the screwups (obviously after saying that I'll screw one up today). I only remember the ones that cost me money anyway.
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Old 07-30-2009, 02:19 PM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by samyn on the green
I Dejected and rejected I moseyed over to the sports book to play my last $5

I sit down in the sports book to look at the racing form and try to make something out of nothing.

By I was out of my mind in the sports book and the whole room was looking at the spectacle I had made of myself.
Wow, can you imagine if you had more $$$ on that one.....The 911 call would probably have been made for you...Lucky you that day...

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Old 07-30-2009, 03:38 PM   #14
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the worst thing that ever hapened to me was i was in tampa bay downs, i bet $100 w+p on the horse, the horse paid $4.60 in $3.00 place. i went back to the window where i bought the ticket to collect my winnings. the teller had punched out $10 w+p instead of the hundred. the guy gave me my winnings and and the difference in money that i gave him. i went back where i was sitting, i was with ray stiffano, i told him the story, he said was that the teller in window 12? i said oh yeah! he said that guys been taking shots at people for years doing that.

i waited for the races to get done, i followed the guy out to his car and made him give me the money he tried to screw me out of, he told me he knew i was going to come back at him and he gave me the money.
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Old 07-30-2009, 04:28 PM   #15
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Had a teller two weeks ago that couldn't figure out how to make the ALL button work on the bottom of dime super bets. So after telling me that it couldn't be bet a few times I said ok try this.............

Called out my combos in the first, second and third spots and then instead of ALL said 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8. Low and behold the bet went through. The race gets run and a 24-1 wins, 28-1 second and something like 14-1 third with a something around 10-1 fourth. I figure I am set for a very nice payoff and am totally surprised when the tote board comes up with an ALL in the 4th spot. I pull the ticket and the teller missed the 2 in 4th which cost me the entire super pool.

I know it was my fault for not looking at the ticket to be sure but I had her punch out 5 or 6 so the amount didn't cause me to look either. The funny thing about it is that I always use the self betting machines but this day they didn't have any of them out because it looked like it might rain. Yes, this was a small bush track where the machines actually sat outside next to the line of tellers.

At least I got about 1/4th of the pool for getting top three
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