Horse Racing
(Copyright 2007 by SLQH Racing Publications. Adapted from Fast Horses, Fast Money: The Complete Guide to Quarter Horse Racing, the first book to link new research on real winning racehorses with easy-to-use, step-by-step betting and handicapping strategies. Available at www.fasthorsesfastmoney.com.)
I’m watching the grooms walk their race horses around the dirt-floored paddock, an airy barn-type structure at Los Alamitos Race Course, the southern California track that offers the nation’s best Quarter Horse racing. The smell of liniment is unmistakable—a strong medicinal odor. Behind the paddock fence, racing fans--three- and four-deep--jostle for position, struggling for the best view of their favorite horse, like golf aficionados stretching their necks to ogle a Tiger Woods’ tee shot.
The clock’s ticking—it’s almost race time, the mother of all moments.
Bettors are feeling the pressure, because soon they’ll have to make the ultimate commitment: decide which horse to bet. The closer it gets to post time, the more heart rates rise, palms sweat, and wallets tremble.
The tension’s palpable in the paddock, essentially an open-air dressing room for the true star of the show: the American Quarter Horse. While nervous--yet hopeful--owners watch their trainers painstakingly saddle their animals in the stalls, racing fans crowded along the narrow corridor study equine body language, glance at their programs over and over again, check the television monitors, discuss their selections, and try to make eye contact with the animals. (“Always bet the horse that winks at you,” an old racing sage once advised.)
Then the riders take center stage. Wearing colorful silks, tiny helmets, and black boots, they could be auditioning for Munchkin-land in the Wizard of Oz. Instead, they strut past adoring fans lined along the fence, brandishing their whips like musical conductors. Children smile and poke their hands through the metal gaps, babies get kissed, teenage girls giggle, relatives and friends are hugged, and fans shout encouraging words.
“OK…Number One!” yells the paddock judge.
One-by-one, the keyed-up race horses are led into the walking circle, where they’re mounted by their riders, then ponied onto the track. After warming up on the backstretch, the animals lope toward the starting gate.
“One minute until race #1,” the track announcer bellows. “One minute…the horses are at the gate.”
As the animals load into the starting gate--just 350 short yards away--fans lean anxiously over the rail, peering down the track. Will the betting public have the right horse for the win, or will an equine Rodney Dangerfield pull off the upset? Which horse will fly out of the gate? Will the favorite break like a cheetah on speed—or a comatose turtle?
The equine sprinters fidget in the narrow stalls. Then the bell suddenly rings, and all hell breaks loose. The gate shakes and rattles. Fans scream. Dirt flies. The Quarter Horses thunder down the track, a Calvary charge measuring 4.5 on the Richter scale. After the photo-finish camera clicks, the herd swerves dangerously around the near turn--kicking up the dirt and narrowly avoiding each other before finally petering out on the backstretch.
Respecting the Riders
Generally, the betting public underestimates the riding skills involved in piloting a 1,200-pound animal with a mind and will of its own. Many racing fans actually believe that guiding a powerful Quarter Horse in a straight line at 40+ miles-per-hour (not to mention safely negotiating the tight turn) requires no special talents—just hang on and everything will be fine. (Uh-huh. Put Joe Q. Public’s sorry butt on a racehorse and he’ll soon be eating dirt pie. It’s not easy to stay balanced aboard a wobbly rocket; you might as well ask Fred Flintstone to surf Pipeline.)
Riding a horse isn’t like driving a car, racing fans. The animal isn’t blessed with state-of-the-art BMW technology. No, the steering system’s far more primitive, the bucket seat’s far too hard and too small, the brakes are unreliable, the shocks aren’t that great, and your footing’s better on Mt. Everest. In one moment everything feels right--you and your horse are one, Zen masters flying down the track in glorious harmony, with every movement beautifully synchronized. Next thing you know you’re lying flat on your back, semi-conscious, struggling to breathe again, and wondering, “What the hell happened?” If an equine mental case wants to run off and jump over the rail, no jockey can stop him. It’s hardly surprising that riders cross themselves before and after each race. Asking for the Almighty’s blessing is a smart thing to do in such a dangerous profession—the only one constantly tailed by an ambulance.
Most jockeys are no Willie Wussies from Ward Cleaver’s neighborhood. As teenagers, they probably didn’t lose much sleep over their acne or SAT scores. They’re tough hombres, macho men who make Beef Jerky look tender. How else can you explain why they endure surgery after surgery, concussions, broken necks, ruptured organs, broken backs? Some riders have so many screws in their body they set off airport metal detectors. The track body-slams them like rag dolls, yet these true warriors keep on getting up, asking for more. If horse racing was a boxing match, the ref would’ve called the fight a long time ago.
The best Quarter Horse riders are superior athletes, with great vision, reflexes, and hand-eye coordination. Pound for pound, jockeys may be the world’s strongest athletes. It’s absurd to argue that all riders are equal in ability, or that it doesn’t matter which jockey pilots a race horse. While a handful of talented horses can find the winner’s circle with Sumo wrestlers on their back, most horses need a top pro to encourage them, help them stay mentally focused, avoid bumping, and get out of the gate quickly--the key to winning Quarter Horse contests. The race itself separates the real riders from the pretenders. Because sprint races end so quickly, every little rider error is magnified. Slightly timid or slow-reflexed riders who check when they should accelerate, get intimidated when they’re sandwiched like an Oreo between horses, or fail to explode through a narrow, rapidly-closing gap may lose all winning chances. Top riders, however, manage to weave in and out of equine traffic jams more expertly than Parisian taxi drivers. Halfway down the track these talented jockeys may look hopelessly beaten--jammed between horses, stuck behind a wall of horseflesh, their lanes seemingly blocked--yet they still find the winner’s circle.
Jockey Research
In 2005 I conducted a detailed analysis of the jockey factor in Quarter Horse racing.
My research (which is presented in Fast Horses, Fast Money) focused on several rider-related questions: Do jockeys play a critical role in determining the outcome of a race? Or should racing fans ignore a horse’s rider when assessing the animal’s winning chances? How many races were actually won by the track’s top riders? Did these jockeys win a greater share of higher-level races as opposed to lower-level contests? Finally, is jockey stability—or continuity—an important issue in horse racing? How important is it for a rider to “know” his or her horse?
An analysis of 110 Los Alamitos races yielded the following conclusions:
• Top riders (defined as those who win at least 15% of the time) won almost 80% of all the races—a huge chunk. This shows that racing fans cannot afford to ignore or undervalue the jockey’s role. If riding skills mattered little in racing, wouldn’t there be a much more even distribution of winners across the board?
• Top riders won more often than top trainers (also defined as horsemen who win at least 15% of the time). Another powerful sign that jockeys play a vital role in Quarter Horse racing. In lower-level races (below the 10K claiming level), top jockeys significantly outperformed top trainers.
• The higher the class level of the race, the more important jockey stability or continuity becomes. Almost 7-out-of-every 10 higher-level races (at and above the $10,000 claiming level) were won by horses being ridden by the same rider that last rode them. During 2005’s Ed Burke Futurity Trials, 14 of the 15 winning horses were piloted by this rider. If trainers trying to qualify for big races obviously prefer using riders who “know” their horses, what lessons can we learn? Horse and rider work together; the better they know each other, the more likely they’ll succeed. By riding the same horse repeatedly, jockeys learn about the animal’s unique mannerisms, personality, attitude, and racing tendencies--valuable knowledge that could produce future trips to the winner’s circle.
• Ironically, more lower-level races were won by “new” riders than the “same” ones. Why this odd discrepancy between lower- and higher-level races? The answer may have something to do with the quality of the racehorses in these two classes. In claiming races, which usually feature more inconsistent and less talented horses, trainers are much more likely to experiment with different riders because good results are needed immediately. These horses don’t have as bright a racing future as their superior colleagues, so why should horse and rider bother getting to know each other?
Rider-related Implications
By failing to understand, respect, and appreciate the critical role that jockeys play in Quarter Horse racing, the betting public unwittingly promotes a false conception of the sport: the idea that only the horse matters in the end. In other words, once you find the best horse on paper, it doesn’t really matter who’s riding the animal because the horse’s inherent superiority will automatically manifest itself on the racetrack. (Yes, sometimes this happens. These horses often become 4-5 favorites.)
What the public fails to realize is that jockeys are racing’s true insiders: knowledgeable horsemen with up-to-date insight about individual racehorses. Riders work the horses, talk to agents and other trainers, hear the scuttlebutt on the track’s backside, and can see who’s scorching the track in morning workouts. It’s their job to know which racehorses are capable of winning, which ones may be sore, which animals need rest, or which ones crawl like turtles. After all, their livelihood—and, by the way, their life itself—is deeply connected to the horse they climb aboard in any given race. With stakes that high, we’d be foolish to ignore their valuable contributions to Quarter Horse racing.
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