Faster Horses, Younger Women

Mel Tillis, the stuttering cowboy singer, came out with a hit record a while back about faster horses, younger women and older whiskey as important parts of his life.

The older whiskey part appealed to me in the past. But since I basically gave up drinking, my interests have changed. I still appreciate younger women and faster horses. That will never change.

Over the years I have come up with many different systems to beat the horse races. Some have worked for a little while and others have failed. That is discouraging but like most horseplayers, I keep trying. It tends to keep me young.

I have gone with the Beyer ratings developed by a horse handicapper named Andrew Beyer. I have played the Lasix angle and bet on horses that use the drug Lasix on a first or second time basic. While I have won races with these methods, they haven't proven successful on a regular basis and so they have been abandoned along the wayside.

Here is a system

It still seems to work after all these years. It may not make you rich, but it should improve your handicapping and it will provide you with some good winners.

The tote board can provide you with some good handicapping information. Before a race starts, check the tote board for the exacta payoffs. Let us say the two horse is listed as the favorite at 2-1. The four horse is listed at 5-2 and the five horse's odds are 7/2.

When the exacta odds are listed, you find that the two horse will pay $10 and $19 if it wins over the two and four horses. But if the four horse wins over the other two horses, the exacta will pay $7 and $10. You bet the horse that pays less since more handicappers are hooking it up with other horses. In this case, it will be the four horse which you can bet to win and place.

I find that this system:

Will bring in a winner or place horse about 70 percent of the time.

One of these days in the near future I plan to go to an off-track betting establishment and try to run $100 into a few thousand by making place bets on such animals. Hopefully, my system will work and the bets will pay off.

I have always loved fast horses. I started riding when I was 15 and took up riding saddle broncos in New Mexico and Arizona when I was still in my teens.

When I lived in Tucumcari...

...and worked as sports editor of the Tucumcari Daily News, I met a fetching redhead whose father owned a creamery in town. Her name was Linda and she and I started dating.

This didn't make her former boyfriend very happy. Red was a saddle bronco rider who owned a couple of bucking horses. One evening he challenged me to prove my manhood by riding one of his broncos. Foolishly I agreed to the challenge and we set up a meeting for the following Saturday at 10 a.m. at a corral in town.

My friend Charlie Carter grew bug-eyed when I informed him of my plans

'My Lord,' Charlie said, 'you got balls, buddy. Nobody has ever ridden Red's black horse, and that includes Red. I have to see this.'

It seemed like half the people in Tucumcari heard about Red's challenge to this Eastern dude and they all showed up on Saturday to watch the event. Even Jess Price, my editor, came to the arena, camera in hand, to record it for posterity.

The black horse was big and powerful. Linda and her girlfriends sat in the bleachers. She was the focus of attention, of course, since two men were fighting for her honor.

When they released the horse and me out of the chute, I lasted about four seconds. The bronco not only threw me, it tossed me through a fence and Price took the picture, which he published in the newspaper on Monday.

The upshot was that Linda got engaged to the son of a banker in town. Red respected me for trying to ride his horse and we became good friends. And I never forgave my editor for publishing that damn photo.

Author: Geno Lawrenzi Jr.

(Geno Lawrenzi Jr. is an international journalist, magazine author and ghostwriter and poker player who lives in Phoenx, AZ. He has published 2,000 articles in 50 magazines and 125 newspapers. If you want to share a gambling story or book idea with him, send an email to glawrenzi@gmail.com ).