Louisville and Churchill Downs were sure bets
We recently took a quick trip to Louisville to visit Coshocton friends who moved there a few years ago.
While there, we saw an outdoor performance of Shakespeare’s "Henry IV, Part 1." It is not performed often outside of the UK, and seeing it let my wife get closer to realizing her goal of seeing all The Bard’s 37 plays live. Only 11 more to go, and we will pick up two more of them this summer, one in Cleveland and one in Stratford, Ontario.
The four of us spent an afternoon at Churchill Downs to see and bet on some horse races. Churchill Downs is the most iconic racetrack in the USA, and the home of the Kentucky Derby, the first of the Triple Crown horse races. The Derby has been run there every year for 144 years.
This year’s triple crown winner, Justify, was at the track, but not on display. He was being featured during the next day’s racing program, not to run, just to be seen. The Saturday Louisville Courier Journal had a six-page special section dedicated to him. Our friends tell us that every issue of the Journal has something on horse racing and University of Kentucky or Louisville basketball, often on the front page.
We had been to Churchill Downs once before many years ago, but there has been a big expansion and upgrade since then. The venue was beautiful and massive. The attendance at this year’s Kentucky Derby was more than 157,000. I don’t know what the attendance was the day we there, but I guess less than 20,000. I can’t imagine what the place would be like with 157,000 people.
I have not been to horse tracks often, and I had to review the betting instructions to understand what to do and how. Fortunately, the daily racing program gave a good explanation. The actual betting process was posted at the many betting windows and kiosks quite simply as follows:
1. State the dollar amount of the bet.
2. State the type of bet.
3. Give the horse number or numbers if making a combined bet like daily double, exacta, etc.
You then pay your money, get your bet tickets, return after the race to collect your winnings and bet on the next race. Repeat.
The program gave a lot of information on each race, horse, and jockey, way more than a novice could possibly understand or perhaps use. Fortunately, each race in the program listed four probable favorite horses out of the six to nine that were running in that race. Also, the big electronic tote boards in the infield showed Joe’s Picks of three favorite horses in each race. I don’t know who Joe was, but he never completely agreed with the favorites listed in the program. However, there usually was some agreement.
When that occurred, I used those two pieces of information to bet on agreed upon favored horses. My wife was a little less scientific and bet on the horse name she liked best. We made several $2 bets on each of the six races we watched. Our combined strategy ended up $8 to the good, not a bad result for novices.
It was a pleasant afternoon. One race was run about every 30 minutes. We saw some beautiful horses, experienced the excitement of live horse racing, and drank some mint juleps - a tradition at Churchill Downs.
Robert Brems is a Coshocton resident and frequent contributor to the Tribune.