This is the last post in this blog. I would suggest going back and getting into the posts with more than just gambling jargon. I say this because the archive list on the right is difficult to view and I've had people tell me they didn't know it was there. My favorites are the ANNIE L.A. ones along with Orson and I and One Hand Clapping. That said...
Good morning Preakness! I'm up and at em' at 6am (I'll explain later). I'm on DRF.COM and just bought The Form. I got a tip yesterday from a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy that's a poker buddy of a clocker up at Pimlico. He loves the 7 horse Laughing in the 3rd at Pimlico. Laughing! What a beautiful name! When I was a kid--I'd say 12 or 13--my favorite horse was this grey horse Launching. He was just a shitty claiming horse who must have run 7 or 8 times one winter at Aqueduct--back then they used to just run the shit out of em'. There was a group of horses, about 5 or 6 of them, all in that class that used to run against each other in every race and it seemed like a different horse would win each time. But it was Launching that won the most of them, and I was on him every time. Anyway, back to Launching in a bit. Right now it's all about Laughing and I just checked The Form and she looks fucking fantastic! She's 7/2 with Ramon Dominguez (The best... even better than Johnny V.) on her. Goldberg off the claim. Bullet work on the 13th. I luuuuuuuv Laughing.
Big day. Big fucking day. For a day like this I need an extra edge. For a day like today I need The Fucking Sheets! I'm on the site now. Fuck these are expensive. 35 bucks. Fuck it they're gonna make me $35,000. So here's the numbers for the Kentucky Derby. Take a quick look and then we'll discuss.
The Ragozin Numbers
for the 2012 KENTUCKY DERBY
I'LL HAVE ANOTHER 4"
BODEMEISTER 6+
DULLAHAN 5+t
WENT THE DAY WELL 6"
CREATIVE CAUSE 5"
LIAISON 7"
UNION RAGS 9+t
ROUSING SERMON 10
HANSEN ~9
DADDY NOSE BEST 11+t
OPTIMIZER 12t
ALPHA 14"
EL PADRINO 15+st
DONE TALKING 16"t
SABERCAT 16
GEMOLOGIST 19+
TRINNIBERG ~12+ at the mile
PROSPECTIVE 22+
TAKE CHARGE INDY 31"
DADDY LONG LEGS
You see what I'm saying? Fucking PI. Fucking John Nashe in all his schizophrenic genius couldn't figure this shit out. Here's what I do know. What makes The Sheets unique is that their speed figures take into account more variables than any other speed figure calculator--the most important being the trip the horse had. I don't know who watches all these fucking races to come up with this shit but fuck am I envious. So I'll Have Another ran the biggest figure (the lower the better). Dullahan ran the 2nd best figure in the race--a quarter of a point faster than Creative Cause (+ sign is 1/4 and " sign is 1/2), who ran a bigger figure than Bode and Went The Day Well. The Fucking Sheets! I love it. I just fucking love it! I'm going to box IHA, Bode, and CC in triples and exactas and throw WTDW underneath in triples and superfecta's. The deal is The Preakness is a 1/16 of a mile shorter than The Derby. Following that logic Bode should be the first to hit the wire since he was well clear in The Derby until he tired after setting a blistering pace. But fuck logic. I think IHA wins again and I'm betting him to win and keying him on top of Bode, CC, and WTDW in everything. I can't fucking wait.
The Ragozin Numbers
for the 2012 KENTUCKY DERBY
I'LL HAVE ANOTHER 4"
BODEMEISTER 6+
DULLAHAN 5+t
WENT THE DAY WELL 6"
CREATIVE CAUSE 5"
LIAISON 7"
UNION RAGS 9+t
ROUSING SERMON 10
HANSEN ~9
DADDY NOSE BEST 11+t
OPTIMIZER 12t
ALPHA 14"
EL PADRINO 15+st
DONE TALKING 16"t
SABERCAT 16
GEMOLOGIST 19+
TRINNIBERG ~12+ at the mile
PROSPECTIVE 22+
TAKE CHARGE INDY 31"
DADDY LONG LEGS
The fucking Preakness! I think it's my favorite of all the triple crown jewels. Everyone is always talking about going to The Kentucky Derby. Fuck The Derby. I want to hit up the fucking Preakness. Never been. Next year after I crush the NCAA tourney I'm buying box seats--fucking clubhouse! The Preakness! Some of the best and worse days of my life have come on Preakness Saturday. The first two that come to mind involve my two favorite horses of all time--Easy Goer and Curlin. Let's start with the tragedy.
The Agony of Defeat
I started betting horses when I was 8 years old. I spent most of my time as a kid in my grandfather's restaurant, Lawrence's Tavern, which was right across the street from an OTB (off track betting). There was a symbiotic relationship between the two. People would make their bets in the parlor then walk across the street for a beer, highball, pastrami sandwich, or whatever. The TV in the tavern was always on OTB. I still remember the day I made my first wager. I played piano when I was a kid. There was a player piano in the bar that I used to practice on, since we didn't have any room for a fucking piano in our house. I was playing some bullshit Bach piece when I heard a big roar at the bar. I looked up from the piano and saw a couple guys jumping up and down and patting my grandfather on the back--Sam we called him. Ole Sam was standing there with a cigarette dangling from his lips wearing the most pronounced smile I'd ever seen on his face. Sam never showed any emotion (don't get me wrong he'd yell and beat the shit out of his kid's when he had to.) But as far as positive emotions, a smile... maybe a chuckle. That's it. I remember thinking in that moment that I wanted to be like Sam. I wanted to pick winners and have everyone pat me on the back while I just chilled, reflecting on my genius, cigarette dangling from my lips. So as the smell of hot pastrami sandwiches filled the room, and the great men of this town sat at the bar sipping on highballs and watching their lives be dictated by a jockey's whip, I stood up and forcefully closed the piano. Fuck Piano I said to myself. What a waste of fucking time. I'm going to be a horseplayer. I'm going to be like Sam... a winner. A winner with dignity. A winner with class. Fucking Sam. That's it. And so it went. Soon I was hanging out at the OTB parlor and had already set up my network to place my bets. The major players were Jake the Irish and Haircut Danny. Jake was older--late 50's. He apparently passed on the job to call the races for NYRA, which eventually went to the driest race caller in the history of the sport--Marshall Cassady. I don't think anyone like Marshall but me. Jake spent every moment of his life out of bed either in OTB or The Tavern. Rumors were that he was gay, possibly a pedophile. I didn't give a shit. I trusted the guy with my life. Haircut Danny was all gay, he wore it in his hair, on his neon shirts, on his white socks hiked up to his knees, and his sweet sweet way. He also was possibly a pedophile. Like Jake the Irish I didn't believe the pedophile rumors one bit. I trusted the guy with my life. I even let him cut my hair a couple times. Not a bad chop. These were my boys. They were there when I'd sneak out of The Tavern. They were there when I'd walk two miles while I was hiding out during a game of ringolevio to get in bets in for the late double. They were there when I'd get dropped off the bus after school and scare the lights out of my mother when I didn't come home. And they were there on the 20th of May, 1989 when I suffered one of the most heartbreaking defeats of my life as a horseman.
Easy Goer is my favorite racehorse of all time. I lived, breathed, bled with this horse. I never missed one of his races. Easy Goer was the beaten favorite in the Kentucky Derby after a bad trip. He was favorite again in The Preakness. Before the derby he set the world record at Aqueduct for a mile race on the dirt. His daddy was Secretariat and he was poised to become the greatest thing since.
Easy Goer wore the colors of the Ogden Phipps stable. Black silks with a Cherry cap. I loved the colors. Fucking loved them. I think it's that weirdo movie Donnie Darko where the kid says something about "of the endless combinations of words in history, Celler Door is the most beautiful." Well I don't know about that, but the black and cherry, placed top to bottom, on a 4' 10" jockey sitting on a horse, was the most beautiful shit I'd ever seen.
Preakness day. I was with the crew. Duke, Aaron, B.G., and Pete. We're getting in poker session before heading down to OTB for the big race. We played poker pretty much every day during and after school. There's much there, but lets just say we would freeze our asses off, in the dead of winter, passing cards around at recess just to get our fix. God that was awesome.
After our session we hit OTB. Duke was the smart one out of the crew. He was from a family of horseplayers. His father was some math-computer guy who plays horses like a pro. One of his brothers would go on to become a trainer, the other one of the best handicappers in the country. Together they were a force and would consistently hit Pick 6's across the country. I mean they would invest tens of thousands to win over a hundreds. They are the only people I know that actually made a living off of the horses. Duke was disciplined. He didn't play every race. He didn't play every hand of poker. Like I said he was the smart one. The rest of us were just fucking degenerates. I've always lamented that I wished I was more like Duke. That day, and two weeks before in The Derby, Duke and The Family loved Sunday Silence. I ran my mouth all week about how Easy Goer was going to romp. Duke and The Family cleaned up. I got cleaned out. Such is the story of my fucking life.
Once again Duke and The Family liked Sunday Silence. I was head over heels in love with Easy Goer. Luckily I lost all my cash in the poker game so I didn't have any money to bet him. But my heart was all up in Easy Goer. He was my guy.
It's getting close to the Post Time of the 5th at Pimlico, so I'm afraid I'm going to have to wrap this blog up. I was a little overzealous this morning and this is what I get. So what transpired in the 153 4/5th's of the 1989 Preakness would become one of the great tragedy's of my life. It's one of those races I watch over and over again wanting so badly for the outcome to be different. Well hell here it is. The horse race Jim McKay declared was, "the best race I have ever witnessed."
Easy Goer v. Sunday Silence II
