Greatest Bonehead Moments

[km]

I think it was ESPN that ran a list of the 10 stupidiest management decisions in sports history. Selling Babe Ruth to the Yankees was the winner. But two other decisions at baseball games get more laughs: 10c beer night in Cleveland and Disco Demolition night in Chicago. Links below, great stories....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10_Cent_Beer_Night

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disco_Demolition_Night

Is there a horse racing equivalent of these that anyone can think of --the most stupid decisions in horse racing history?

= Ruffian vs. Foolish Pleasure match race that resulted in horrifying tragedy and perhaps the single moment in time when the sport of horse racing began its downhill slide.

=Magna buys Thistledown and Great Lakes Downs

=Building a track in Alabama: Birmingham Downs

=Hialeah runs on same days as Gulfstream with 38% takeouts (then shuts down for good)

(Breeders Cup at MTH) :eek:

Maybe someone has a better one...

[David-LV]

How about Magna buying any track let alone Thistledowns & Great Lakes.

_________
David

[njcurveball]

In the days before simulcasting when on-track attendance were the only people putting money through the windows.

Liberty Bell running the same nights as Brandywine. (about 30 miles apart)

Garden State running the same days as Keystone (aka Phila Park), tracks were about 15 miles apart.

And closer to home.

Bob Levy selling Atlantic City Race Course to Greenwood Racing. Ending any chance this once great track would ever run a full meet again.

[km]

The "Sport of Kings" racebook in Vegas might be one of the dumbest moves of all time. Built the multi-million dollar facility and with great haughtiness opened it up to all comers - no limits on the house Quinella. They were buried and broke in less than a week and shut down with players demanding their money.

[MVM]

Single-Single-Single-Single-All-All

[njcurveball]

Single-Single-Single-Single-All-All


This is a good one. However, no one mentions how much these guys were taking out of the Balmoral pools with this trick before they decided to go big time.

They had a literal cash cow there and my brother, who was following Bamoral at the time kept telling their Pick 4s were short.

These guys had a ticket to take out $500 to $2,000 per day and got so greedy they wanted to play pick six tickets.

They hit one at Belmont before the Breeders Cup and I guess that got their bravado up they would never be caught.

Like most drunk drivers and speeders, the time they get caught is far from the first time. These guys were just greedier than they were smart.

I guess we can lump in the tellers at ACRC who found out the windows at a simulcast track (I believe it was Calder) were still open after the race. They went in to play $50 straight exactas! If they had bet $2 or $5 they would have had a nice tip and perhaps still had a job.

[BillW]

(Breeders Cup at MTH) :eek:

Maybe someone has a better one...

Ahhh how quickly they forget, LONE STAR! :D

[TEJASKIDD]

I have one.

I was at Los Alamitos in the early 90's. I played a race at HONG KONG. I hit the exacta for $2. 5 minutes after the race was over, I put my winning ticket in the machine. Instead of the machine cashing my ticket, the CANCEL WAGER prompt came up. Quickly, I thought, if I can cancel my wager, then hurry up and get your losing tickets and put them in. I ran back to my table and grabbed my losing tickets. In the process I forgot that I had left my winner in the machine. I hit the cancel button on my winner, then I proceeded to cancel the rest of my $30 in losers. Then the machine shut off and cancelling was closed. The payoff on the exacta was over $100 when the race was made official.
Instead of cashing for over 100, I saved my $30 bucks. The really sad thing is, if the cancel prompt was still open, then the wagering was still open. Instead of CANCELING my wagers, I could have been betting more on the winning exacta.

[Donnie]

OK---you wanna get personal with this??

KY Derby that War Emblem won.
First Derby I was using my database against. Planned to play the trifecta. Told Sue I was gonna run to the track, place my tri bet, come home and watch the race on TV, then we'll go out for supper.
Got to the track and was looking at the odds of the horses I liked. I figured they would never come in with odds that high....come on! 45-1. 24-1. 18-1. NOWAY!!
Scaled the bet back to an exacta. Ticket cost went from something like $88 down to $32 or something.
Went home. Sat down on the couch, turned on the TV. Sue jumped in the shower. She came out of the shower asking what all the yelling was about. I hit the exacta! I hit the exacta!! I screwed up when I told her I shelved my tri ticket and I would have won that had I stuck to my original plan. She asked what the exacta paid......"about $1200!!!" "And the tri paid what?" ".....about $12 Grand. But I saved about $60 on my ticket!!!"

To this day I still have to defend my bonehead switch!

[TEJASKIDD]

OK---you wanna get personal with this??

KY Derby that War Emblem won.
First Derby I was using my database against. Planned to play the trifecta. Told Sue I was gonna run to the track, place my tri bet, come home and watch the race on TV, then we'll go out for supper.
Got to the track and was looking at the odds of the horses I liked. I figured they would never come in with odds that high....come on! 45-1. 24-1. 18-1. NOWAY!!
Scaled the bet back to an exacta. Ticket cost went from something like $88 down to $32 or something.
Went home. Sat down on the couch, turned on the TV. Sue jumped in the shower. She came out of the shower asking what all the yelling was about. I hit the exacta! I hit the exacta!! I screwed up when I told her I shelved my tri ticket and I would have won that had I stuck to my original plan. She asked what the exacta paid......"about $1200!!!" "And the tri paid what?" ".....about $12 Grand. But I saved about $60 on my ticket!!!"

To this day I still have to defend my bonehead switch!


First of all, ODDS should never matter, Donnie. Odds are based on public perception!!! Remember, you are smarter than the public!!

Second of all, go back to that shower scene. LOL

[Donnie]

Dennis-
That was my defining moment of learning that lesson! Believe me. Don't pay a whole lot of attention to odds now unless we are staring down an odds-on horse. Sue got in the habit of saying "Don't second guess yourself." Point taken.

Re: shower scene....do you prefer pictures or movies....??? LOL!!!

[AlanLN]

Got one almost as good as Donnie's:

Back in 1992 or so, when the Breeder's Cup was at Santa Anita, the Classic was yet to run. I mostly play exacta's. So, After I had made my exacta bets (I liked Bertrando, and keyed off the 1 and 5) I decided to bet the TRI 1,5/1,5/all, all/1,5/1,5, 1,5/all/1,5. That would have cost $60, but I only had $45 on my voucher (I had bet more on the exactas than planned), so I kicked three horses out and saved $18 for a $42 bet. When the 1 and 5 hung on for 2nd,3rd and Arcanguess won @ $200 plus, I had forgotten for a moment that I didn't have the "all" for the win and thought I had the big TRI.

I think that $18 I saved cost me $6000-8000. And of course I didn't have the $1000 exacta.

[tommyc]

Donnie

Re pics/tapes for Dennis.....pls send 'em to my Lake Timpson address, I'll get 'em to Dennis ASAP.....

tommyc

[km]

Good stories guys

I have talked with many horseplayers over the years that have a funny mental block when it comes to seeing huge odds on the horses they like. There seems to be a boundry 30/1, 50/1, etc, that suddenly gives them "the fear of too much success" and they back off.

That's one good thing about playing in tournaments regularly, you tend to lose that sensitivity and don't care because you know you have to play the bombs.

We had a user from Ohio that was playing tri boxes with a specific factor from HTR that he uncovered that showing a big profit. 3-horse box, mechanical approach. He played it day after day. One race at CRC came up and the odds were like Donnie's story 80/1 - 40/1 and 30/1 or something. He figured it had no chance and saved the $6. You know the story - it hit, but no one else had it, so he would have taken the whole pool. This tore him apart and he quit HTR and betting the horses and we never heard from him again.

[Huguenot]

Since the guy stopped playing, Ken, why didn't you just use his method ?--
or share it with us or give us a hint!!! !:D

[km]

It was something he uncovered on his own, specifically from CRC, i think it was top 3 trainer ratings. The kind of stuff you can dig out of the Robot or Modeler. The point was that he was going to play it out for $6 box every race and hope for a boomer. It delivered, he didn't.

[TEJASKIDD]

Donnie

Re pics/tapes for Dennis.....pls send 'em to my Lake Timpson address, I'll get 'em to Dennis ASAP.....

tommyc

Hey Tommy,

You trying to cut out the middle man. I already have 2 dozen orders for those. I need that tape, I gotta meet my demand. I promised all purchasers they would have them by Thanksgiving. I advertised it as the half time show of the COWBOYS JETS game this weekend. By the way, HOW BOUT THEM COWBOYS!!!!! SUPER BOWL SUPER BOWL!!!. Laurel already has the flights and hotel booked for Phoenix.

[OPM]

THis one just happened on Saturday.
I am playing in the TVG contest on Saturday. In the 6th, I like 2 horses the 7 and the 11, after debating long and hard, I went with the 11, who took the lead but was run down by the 7. In the 7, I like Platinun Couple who won and paid $19, in the 8th, I loved Hunting and he won and paid $21. In the 9th, I like the 3 and he was 6-1 but opened up at 5/2 so I switched over to the 6 who tracked the 3 briefly took the lead by a head but the 3 pulled away again and won easily.
Well, for a grand total of $2, I could have had a pk 4 that paid $22,500 for $1. Crap, Crap

[Mall]

You fooled me OPM. Before I read your post, I assumed you had selected one or two of your favorites from what could be an hour long highlight reel of "Keith's Biggest Contest Blunders."
In any event, a guy from New York I met two years ago at the NHC told me this story, which might merit an honorable mention in the category. Although he needed $10 or so, he felt pretty confident going into the last race of a qualifying contest at one of the small tracks in Canada, since his play of the day was in the race and was on the board at sufficient odds to overtake the leader. However, after making his play in the contest, he also, without considering the consequences, decided as he left the window to also make a $200 win bet on the horse. Although the horse ended up winning, his bet caused a big enough drop in the horse's final odds that he missed qualfiying by less than a buck.

[Donnie]

THis one just happened on Saturday.
I am playing in the TVG contest on Saturday. In the 6th, I like 2 horses the 7 and the 11, after debating long and hard, I went with the 11, who took the lead but was run down by the 7. In the 7, I like Platinun Couple who won and paid $19, in the 8th, I loved Hunting and he won and paid $21. In the 9th, I like the 3 and he was 6-1 but opened up at 5/2 so I switched over to the 6 who tracked the 3 briefly took the lead by a head but the 3 pulled away again and won easily.
Well, for a grand total of $2, I could have had a pk 4 that paid $22,500 for $1. Crap, Crap

Actually it woulda paid $11,250, no? 2 of you would of had it!!

Tough beat on that other one, Mel! One reason I won't do live bets on my tournament selections.....