Colins Ghost

I didn’t have the time to put togther a history post this week but wanted to alert everyone to a piece I wrote for Hello Race Fans.  As I mentioned in this space before, Hello Race Fans is a website that I will be contributing to in the coming year. The idea behind the site is to provide a place for new horse players to learn the game.   While it’s geared towards new fans, I think anyone who enjoys the process of handicapping races will find it valuable.

The site is currently in preview mode and is publishing a series called “Letters to a New Horseplayer.”  The letters have been a lot of fun and represent a number of viewpoints and ideas about playing the races. They are just a glimpse of what will prove to be a primary virtual space for the racing community.

Dana Byerly of Green But Game and her business partner Adam Wiener are the co-founders of Hello Race Fans. In addition to the site, they operate an ad network of which Colins Ghost recently joined. All of the ad revenue generated by Colin’s Ghost in 2010 will be donated to the Daily Racing Form Preservation Project. I will be sending out this press release about it next week.

A big thank you to all who have stopped by Colin’s Ghost in 2009.  It has been a joy to use this site to write about racing during such a memorable year. We may never again have another year like 2009 but who knows what 2010 will bring.  Who would have thought at the beginning of 2009 we would see a 3-year-old filly win a Triple Crown race and beat the old boys in the Woodward? Or that a female would win the Breeders Cup Classic for the first-time? We don’t know what 2010 has in store but whatever happens, let’s hope they all get around safe, and racing has many reasons to celebrate in the coming year.

A Happy and Lucky New Year to all from Colin’s Ghost headquarters!

One of the real joys in writing for this site is doing the research. It is amazing the historical trails that can be followed via the internet. As someone who remembers doing research before the web, it is astounding what can be discovered while sitting on your couch. If you have ever had microfilm-motion-sickness, you understand the luxury of researching on the internet

A few days back, I was poking around in my usual way and landed on the search terms “racetrack riots.” I had been searching for a particular incident when runners for local pool rooms and race track security clashed in Chicago. That is an incident I’m sure to revisit in a future post but I began uncovering accounts of horseplayer riots that were equally fascinating and bizarre.

A found a handful of horseplayer insurrections at tracks in Europe and North America. The most recent one of significance in the United States (that I could find) was at Roosevelt Raceway in 1963, when players demanded and then rioted in efforts to get refunds on their daily double tickets after a mass pileup eliminated six of the eight betting interests. Fifteen people were arrested and the head of track security died of a heart attack during the altercation. Reports called the riot the “worst in harness history.”

In 1975, horseplayers rioted at a harness track in Canada called Richelieu. Like the riot at Roosevelt, it also came as the result of confusion over an exotic bet (referred to as a “gimmick” in the article). When a statistical coincidence resulted in a $58.50 mutuel on a straight win bet and and the exact same $58.50 on a quinella payout in the eighth race, horse players smelled a fix and showed their displeasure by causing $50,000 in damages.

A riot in Europe took place at a track in Vincennes, France in 1930 when five trotters were left at the gate at the start of the first race. Punters “wrecked the grandstands, raided the bars, and continued rioting until assured that entrance money and all bets would be refunded.” When it was decided that bettors would be refunded, “the mob quieted and began lining up at the various gates to get their money back.” Nothing like the promise of a few bucks to transition a riot to an orderly queue.

Interestingly, most of the horsplayer riots I came across occurred at harness tracks (i’d love to hear some theories on this?).

With the exception of clashes between bookmakers and police found in the early part of the century, the most significant incidents I found at a thoroughbred track occurred at Suffolk Downs. The first was in 1944, and the second, in 1945, described this way by the the Associated Press:

“Police reserves were rushed to the Suffolk Downs horse track late Saturday as an angry crowd of spetators rushed the stewards stand and smashed the equipment in protest against a disqualification.

“The disturbance began as the number of the favorite, Johnny jr., was hauled down a winner of the co-featured $5,000 Commonwealth. Windmill, owned by Mrs. T. Haskos and A. Spilos was declared winner after Johnny jr., was disqualified for fouling.

“One spectator climbed into the stewards pagoda, when two policmen grabbed him, about 100 booing spectators swarmed on the track, one of them hurling a bottle through the door of the official stand. A shower of bottles followed and the stewards huddled on the floor, holding chairs up for protection. Police prevented a group from overturning a tractor used to harrow the track. After 45 minutes, track police called out the reserves with tear gas and riot guns and the crowd was dispersed.

“The jockeys’ scale was smashed in the riot, a policeman’s motorcycle sidecar was set afire and an attempt to burn an awning opposite the finish stand was frustrated.

“The eighth race, final event of the Suffolk season, was called off because Massachusetts law does now allow horseracing after 7 p.m. It had been delayed as the crowd roamed the track.”

I love the last line here: Are we to assume that if the riot ended before the 7 o’clock curfew the 8th would have gone off as planned? Times sure have changed – I have to think that an incident like this today would bring about a Congressional hearing and calls for the banishment of the sport.

SOURCES, NOTES, AND OBSERVATIONS

Thanks to the Horseplayers Association blog for mentioning and linking to my site last week in their piece about takeout. Also, a thanks to John Pricci who was inspired by the HANA post to write an article at Horserace Insider about Colin and the “good old days” when tracks had dress codes. I wonder what the rioters were wearing when they tried to burn down the steward stand at Suffolk back in the “good old days”?

A new set of letters to a new horseplayer are up at the Hello Race Fans site including one that I wrote. Check it out!

Happy Holidays everyone! Thanks for reading!

A few months back I read a book called You Bet by writer Colin Cameron about the history of the popular online betting exchange Betfair. The book traces British-based Betfair’s emergence from a small internet start up to a massive online wagering platform. One of the most interesting aspects of the book is how attitudes toward gambling differ between the United States and Great Britain.  In reading You Bet you realize that only in a place where alternatives to pari-mutuel wagering exist can a creative idea like peer-to-peer betting grow. The book got me thinking about how the current system of wagering became so entrenched in the U.S.

Gambling on horse racing in America has evolved in the last 30 years with the initiation of exotic and intra-race betting but pari-mutuel wagering has been the basis of all legal betting in this country for nearly 80 years.  Instances of  pari-mutuel wagering in the U.S. can be found as early as the 1870s but bookmaking came to dominate wagering at most tracks by the 1880s. Around the turn of the century, when reformers shut down racing in many states by outlawing bookmaking, it was pari-mutuel wagering that became the only legal alternative. The continuation of racing in an anchor state like Kentucky was the direct result of the adoption of the mutuel system (Kentucky officially outlawed bookmaking in 1906).

When the mutuals arrived at tracks in Kentucky, much debate arose over what it meant for racing. The Daily Racing Form published an article summarizing the opinions about the mutuel system when they arrived at Latonia Race Track in 1908. Here are some highlights from the article that offers opinions on an aspect of the game that has become so ingrained in American racing that we take it for granted:

”The fact that the Latonia Jockey Club has decided to continue the parimutuel system of betting in accordance with the expressed desire of the [Kentucky] State Racing Commission has not in any manner lessened the opposition to the [pari-mutuel] machines by the bookmakers and professional betting men…

“…The public is gradually becoming impressed with the fact that the average of odds returned through the machines is better than formerly, when the books were in operation. This at once puts a quietus on the contention that the more you bet the more you cut your own price and that you never know what price yon are going to get. Of course, it requires considerable figuring up of the totals registered by the machines to form any approximate idea as to just about what any certain horse will pay. In fact, it is practically impossible to do so and this will continue to be an undesirable feature of the mutuels until some satisfactory totalizator is put in operation…

[NOTE: The first automatic totalizator system was installed in 1913 at a track in Auckland, New Zealand]

“…That the absence of the bookmakers, their employees, and the big players is felt in many ways cannot be denied. It is equally true that the sport under the present plan lacks much of the noise, bustle, hurrah and excitement that it formerly possessed. Formerly, when a man went racing, his interest was largely held in the betting ring…

“…The sporting people about town the cafes, restaurants, theaters, etc. complain that the absence of the bookmakers and big players affects their business as undoubtedly it does. In truth with the absence of the genuine sporting element both the race tracks and the town sporting resorts have taken on a decidedly somber and quiet tone. They are almost as placid and decorous as a church wardens meeting…”

“…Accustomed to years of speculation with the slates, the majority of racegoers would no doubt prefer to continue to bet in the old familiar way. But it appears to be pretty clearly evident, after two months experience with the machines here and at Louisville, that the public will very shortly become so accustomed to the mutuels that they will bet as freely in the machines as they would in the books. If the mutuels will practically eliminate the former unsavory talk of fraud that was broadcast and that often developed into scandals that aroused the most violent action on the part of reformers, and again in a measure restore the sport of kings to its old time estate, when it was a gentleman’s game, it will have accomplished much.” (Read the full article here)

The shift towards the current system for legal wagering in the U.S. started in the first 10 years of the 20th century. Few could argue now or then of the equity of the mutuel system. Unfortunately, the system has become an albatross for horse players as political and business interests have inflated their piece of the wagering pool. When Kentucky initiated the mutuel system after 1906, the takeout stood at 5% — a figure that seems quaint today. As wagering evolves in places where peer-to-peer wagering and bookmaking is permissible, the U.S. remains tied to a system that is conceptually brilliant but has become rigid and stultifying by the political forces that insist on sucking it dry.

NOTES, SOURCES, AND OBSERVATIONS

“Changes in American Betting Ways”, Daily Racing Form, March 6, 1908

“Pari-Mutuel Betting Explained”, Daily Racing Form, May 9, 1908

“Pari-Mutuel vs. Bookmaking Odds”, Daily Racing Form, June 26 1908

As you can see, the re-design of the site is done. You might notice that I am carrying advertising for the first time. All ad revenue generated from the site will be donated to the Daily Racing Form Preservation Project. More to come on this in a future post.

Happy to be back doing history again after much hair-pulling in re-doing the site. I hope to have another post before the end of the year. Looking forward to 2010 and another great year of racing!  Thanks for your patience during the site upgrade.

I have been enjoying the new blog Zipse at the Track. The author’s most recent article is on Alysheba. Check it out!

THANKS FOR READING AND GOOD LUCK!