CIGAR & The PATRIOTS !!!

[ChampDog]

This may be a stretch no pun intended, but I was at the race in Del Mar when Cigar failed in his bid to break the record when he lost to Dare and Go. There were grown Men crying that day when the race course stood still for a moment in time and Del Mars most exciting day ever when a record crowd comes aboard to watch the mighty Cigar attempt to break Citation's 16 consecutive-wins mark in the sixth Pacific Classic. But the roar turns to a hush of disbelief as unheralded Dare And Go upsets the champ.

It was at a track in San Diego and Dare and Go had NO CHANCE according to the whole horse racing world the out come is history, but as we have seen in the past history does repeat itself ???

The story does have a happy ending for Cigar as he retired to stud at the end of the 1996 racing season !!!

[BrentCrude]

The real knowlegeable horse people are always betting losers.

Back before internet gambling and land based casinos being in every area I used to go to the race tracks allot.It had a great atmosphere and even if you lost a few bucks playing exotics it still was a fun night out.You actually get pretty good at handicapping just being into the sport recreationally and you get into the sport.So in the past 15 years I rarely bet horses or greyhounds because the handles aren't there anymore etc.Then you have the tax takeout factor juice,paying for a race form,sometimes paying to get into the track and parking and it's unattractive.I do like the fact that you get bigger simulcast handles these days and they got creative with 10 cent exotic bets and such.

I still watch the 2 satellite race networks and the network telecasts of major reaces though and some of the color experts on the telecasts are absolutely totally into horse racing where they know everything there is to know about horses.Charlsea Cantey always comes to mind.The problem is,none of them can pick winners any better than most people that never went to a horse race in their life.I just love to watch a race where you get 3 or 4 of the biggest experts in the game saying that a certain horse can't lose that race and is justified at going off at 3-5 odds.Bingo,2 minutes later,the horse finishes out of the money.And if their mortal locks do win,it's by a tit hair and they practically egged people on in the crowd to mortgage the farm on betting on the race.

If absolute experts that do nothing in their life except hang out around horses and horse people fail at being able to predict winners at a half ass clip,it means to me that betting any sport is about the same and the only edge you have is bonus hunting abuse,finding bad lines,finding books that accept correlated parlays,having inside information and playing comps and such.

I know teams take flu shots but where I live right now the high schools and colleges came down with the flu bug and what's to say a team like the Patriots don't have it?You only find out after the game they lost that teams had it.It's like watching a horse race where the 1-5 favorite is 20 lengths ahead at the 1/16th pole and see's a shadow and hops dismounting it's jockey.There are too many variables in sports betting.