Monday, May 7, 2012

My First Trip to the Kentucky Derby

I'm a little frustrated. I wanted to send out my selections prior to the Kentucky Oaks and the Kentucky Derby but my I-Pad would not access my list. Then, I tried to write up this e-mail on my I-Pad but when I shut it down on the plane, it did not retain what I had written. So, sorry for the lack of communication.

1The subject line above reads like a school essay. In many ways, it feels like one because I'd never experienced the Kentucky Derby on site before and while I knew alot about what to expect, I was often surprised.

We were supposed to be in an exclusive area where I assumed I'd be comfortable and outside the crush of the most of the 165,000 attendees. Unfortunately, at times, it seemed like the whole crowd was in the Turf Club, where we sat, and too many of them were milling around us, often making it very difficult to see the races and enjoy the experience.

The best way to SEE the Kentucky Derby is on large screen TV in the comfort of your own home. However, being at a live sporting event has an electricity that can't be matched by any television set. The noise is deafening at Madison Square Garden when the Rangers take the ice in the deciding game of a Stanley Cup series. So it goes with football (have you ever been in one of those stadiums that hold over 100,000 people?). Same is true for the World Series or any pivotal game or historical rivalry... or when you join with 165,000 others and sing My Old Kentucky Home at the Kentucky Derby! It's very special... And so were the people we met in Louisville.

We'd met several of Mike's Kentucky pals in Saratoga last summer but it was just to say hello. This time we got to spend time with them and were the beneficiaries of their kindness... From being picked up by Chris at the airport or by Mark to take us to dinner or by Popsy and Jan who took us back and forth by Limo to Churchill Downs both days.
It seems that everyone loves their alcohol in Kentucky. At Popsy's home each morning, we drank Mimosas or Bloody Marys... at 9:30 in the morning.

At Churchill Downs, we were served Lilies, the Official drink of the Kentucky Oaks on Friday (and anything else we wanted) all day long. I assumed this was a method of making you not care about losing your money! Similarly, the Mint Juleps flowed all of Saturday. Plus, both days saw distillers, like Macallan, Moet & Chandon and Woodford Reserve give out free samples of their wares!

Yes, the celebs were all there... Ashton Kutcher and the New England Patriot's Tom Brady were nearby, while the brooding Aaron Rodgers and several of his Green Bay Packers sat at the next table and asked Security to keep the people away, making it even more difficult for us to see the races.

3The fashions ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous. It was the perfect place to to gawk at celebs, people watch and check out jewelry. In short, it was the perfect place for Rhoda to spend the weekend! We even "crashed" a party benefitting disabled jockeys and checked out the auction items. Next time -- if there is a next time -- we'll go to other events as well.


So, how did the horse race handicapping go, you ask? Well, Friday was Kentucky Oaks day and we did quite well. We had several winning tickets throughout the day and capped it off by hitting the $173.20 exacta in the Kentucky Oaks won by Believe You Can.

Saturday was another story. I made one handicapping error when I changed my exacta bet to Key one horse as the winner, so I could get another horse on the card without increasing my bet. So, of course, the extra horse ran out of the money but my "key" horse came in second to one fo the others on the card. That hurt.

Finally, I had a winning exacta but it was two favorites, resulting in a net $5 gain for that race.

Then, came the Derby, which I'd been doing well handicapping the last few years. However, with so many evenly matched horses, I let a bias against California horses see most of my selections run out of the money.

The one save turned out to be a Superfecta pool with eight of us paticipating, where we each selected one horse and bet $210 for a total of $1,680... it was an 8-horse box of $1 on each Superfecta (top four horses in a row). There were 1680 $1 combinations. Mike D. picked Dullahan and I picked Bodemeister. Two of the six Kentuckians picked Went the Day Well and I'll Have Another.

2When they passed the finish line we knew that I'll Have Another was the winner over Bodemeister, who was second but we didn't know who had finished third or fourth. The, they posted Dullahan for third and Went the Day Well for fourth... unbelievably, we'd won! Now the question was what would it pay? Bodemeister was the favorite but the others were all in double figure odds.


It took some time for them to calculate the payouts. Then they posted the results. They showed the payout for a $2 ticket but we had only bet $1 on each combination. Nonetheless, we couldn't believe it. For $2, the Superfecta paid over ninety-six thousand dollars. That meant, ~$48,000 for our $1 bet!! Wow! The government took ~$15,000 but that left $33,000 to split 8 ways. The money was certainly nice but the excitement of this victory was very special. We had never been involved in such a payoff before. It made up for not having the winner myself!

We'd told Mike D. that he was the leader for the weekend. He got the tickets, invited us and introduced us to his friends. Once again, he did not lead us astray. We'll follow him anywhere!

Linda Rice said she'd come next year. I told Mike that the Morning Line was 8 - 1 against... but he's much more optimistic. I hope he's right!

Saturday night, MarvelthisBliss ran 7th. We told Eric to consider putting our acquisitions in claiming races and trading for some better stock. It is frustrating not to have a single harness win.

Depending on the weather, we'll be looking for Awakino Cat to race on the grass on Sunday and maybe It's Truly Ahvee on Saturday. We'll let you know if anything comes to pass or we just end up passing.

Have a great week!

A.