Handicapper

The local newspaper, The Saratogian, is having trouble with their delivery crews. The paper, with declining readership, isn’t helping its case by delivering a morning rag in time for lunch.

During the six week racing reason the paper prints the Pink Sheet, the daily scoop on the horses, the jockeys and trainers as well as the whereabouts of MaryLou Whitney, the socialite who is as old as the dirt on the track. The half dozen of handicappers make their predictions and if I spend more than ten minutes picking my horses for the day I have over analyzed the field.

My technique is simple. I chose weather horses. They have done well during the first two weeks. Dark Sky paid $41.00. Storm on the Track won. Names of people I know also run well. Saratoga Steve, Her Comes Rita. Geography not so well - Ketchican and Gansevoort finished somewhere well behind the leaders.

Since my job gives me a front row seat to the horses and jockeys before they enter the track I am surrounded by serious railbirds. With one eye on their racing forms and the other on the thoroughbreds, they scribble cryptic notes on each pony as they parade by. Some are quite adept at holding two or three newspapers, several pens of different ink colors and a fat cigar. Most are men, but every once in a while a lone woman will ease up to the chain and peer over the top of her glasses at the horses.

They look at the amount of froth in the mouth or behind the hind thighs. They check out the legs, the wrappings and the size of the feet. Some will call out to the jockeys, who rarely acknowledge the crowd unless the voice is familiar.

Once the horses pass, I drop the chain gate and the crowd disperses quicker than rats off a sinking ship. These guys don’t wager simple win place and show. They go for daily doubles, exactas, quinellas and superfectas. Regardless of what happens they return. There is always the next race. The next hot tip.

I’ll always take the grays in the short races. My best day included five wins. On Monday my picks always beat the horses in the upcoming race. I'm lucky it is against the rules to place a bet while in uniform, but I have heard of some guards ditching their hats and shirts in the bushes before strolling to the window to take the seventh horse in the eighth.