When you are deep sea fishing, be very careful when something seems to be just nibbling at your hook. That could be the biggest fish in the sea.
Have you ever worked for a circus? How about for a midway in a traveling carnival?
While I have never been so employed, the people who work for carnivals and circuses fascinate me. They make me want to find out more about them.
Carnival and circus people, especially those who work on the midway, have secrets. They rarely share those secrets with outsiders. But they know why your chances of knocking down those milk bottles with a baseball and winning a big prize are next to impossible. They know those big prizes are out there just to attract the public, and not to give away to anybody.
Horse racing operates very close to the way carnivals and circuses operate. Like a circus or carnival, a horse race seems very basic in the way it works. But that is where the public is fooled.
A horse race is never simple. Even the odds on those horses in the race are meant to trick you.
Fred Hill was a horse trainer who lived in Phoenix, AZ. He was in his 80s when I met him. Fred rarely drank -- his worst vice seemed to be smoking cigars. But he knew more about thoroughbred racing than any person I had ever met.
He had a Texas drawl and a laid-back way of putting things. I was a features writer on a weekly newspaper in Phoenix when we first crossed paths. Fred liked my writing style and would often share thoughts with me when we met at the track.
For example he would ask me if I bet on the early races at a track. I would shrug and say, "Probably, Fred. Why do you ask?"
Hill would say, "Bad idea, son. Those are usually the cheapest races. Nobody knows which horse is going to win the race. Why risk your money on a race like that when you can wait for the better horses to perform."
Or he would ask me if I ever tracked the odds. I would ask him what he was talking about.
"The tote board is where all the information is contained, son," he would explain. "The public bets a certain way and the track, meaning the horse owners and trainers, bet a different way. It's up to you to figure out where the smart money is going because we sure ain't gonna tell you."
The fact is that your chances of beating the horses are boiled down to two: slim and none. There are just too many different things that can happen in a horse race from the animal's condition to the condition of the track to make a difference in the outcome.
I compare horse racing to deep sea fishing. Anybody can make a strike on a big fish when you get a major bite on your line. But it's the little wiggles that help you land the big ones.
Smart money, meaning track money, can come early or late in the wagering. And that smart money can come down on any horse regardless of the odds.
Let's say a horse's morning line odds are listed at 7-1 (if you don't know what morning line odds are, you may be reading the wrong column). When there are 15 minutes to post time, the tote board shows the odds on that horse suddenly dip from 7-1 to 5-1 or lower. That isn't public money that has been wagered on the horse. It's track money, meaning somebody with deep pockets likes that particular horse.
Same is true when it's just two minutes to post time and you see a two or three point drop in the odds on a horse. If I saw such a thing happening, that would be my choice for the race.
I love it when a horse drops in odds either early or late in the betting and then at post time the odds raise back to normal. This is a perfect situation for you to bet a horse to win and place and have a reasonable chance of collecting.
The world is full of secrets. If you are a gambler, you had better learn a few of them. Otherwise, friend, just plan on kissing your money bye bye.
