Dire Straits I
It was my misfortune to win the first time I went to the track. On a Sunday in the summer of 1967, Munson took me out for closing day at Hollywood Park and we both came away with what seemed like a lot of money at the time. I had stayed up until the wee hours the night before being tutored by Munson on the finer points of thoroughbred handicapping. Munson had grown up 10 minutes from Santa Anita Race Track and had become a complete fanatic. My biggest score had come at the end of the day when I put everything I had on a grey horse named Win For Me Only.
As thrilled as I was to have won the money, I was even more enthused by how easy it had been to pick winners. I began pressing Munson as soon as we started walking out the exit back to our car. Why hadn't he told me about this before? Why were we working when we could be doing this every day? He mentioned that some days were better than others but he failed to give this point the proper emphasis. Before we left the parking lot, plans were made to follow the racing circuit beginning the next weekend in Del Mar.
This was not as rash a decision as it might sound. I was between part-time jobs and had made more in our day at the track than I could expect to see in a month if I were working. Munson was teaching high school and had the summer off. I was house sitting on Mt. Washington at the time. Walter needed a place to stay and had moved in with me. Walter liked the sound of our plan and wanted in. He was working at Sparklettes with Carey and decided he would call in sick. On Friday morning, Munson, Walter and I drove south together toward San Diego to begin our adventure.
Del Mar is a small track that operates for only a few weeks every year in late summer. Despite this, it draws a bigger daily crowd than any other track in the USA because of the time of year and the location. We couldn't find a motel with a vacancy until 10 o'clock that night. We finally found a room at a Howard Johnson's on the outskirts of El Cajon and a long drive from Del Mar. We stayed up late pouring over the racing form looking for winners on the next day's card. Munson kept rambling about a premonition that there would be a key number for the day but he couldn't decipher from the form what it might be. Munson no longer applied a rational approach to picking winners as he had been burned too many times.
All horses want to run a certain way every time they step on the track and there isn't much a trainer or a jockey can do to change it. Most horses either run fast early or run fast late. If there are several horses in a race that run fast early, they inevitably burn themselves out and give way as the run-fast-late horses pass them and go on to the finish line. The horses are predictable but the races are not. The trainers and jockeys all know exactly how every horse likes to run and during a race they all conspire to do everything they can to screw things up for the other horses. They hold the horse back, they block or trap a horse on the rail, they force a closing horse to run wide, etc. Not only are these tactics successful in spoiling things for the horse that would likely have won, but they also spell defeat for the horses that apply the tactics since their preferred running style has been altered as well. This is but one of many reasons why over two thirds of all races are won by a horse that was not the favorite.
A year or two earlier, Munson had spotted a horse in the racing form who had won a short race early in his career but had lost badly in his next 20 attempts. The horse always ran fast early and had always been in races filled with several other horses that ran the same way. He always contested with others for the lead and caved in at the halfway point. The race track term for this is "cheap speed". Munson noticed that for the first time since the horse's only win 2 years earlier, there was no other horse with early speed in the race.
When a horse that likes to run fast early (even a cheap speed horse), gets a clear lead at the start of a race and is unchallenged, it makes a big difference. There isn't any pounding hooves, jockeys whistling and screaming in their ears, dirt clods hitting them in their face, or 1,600 lbs slamming into their ribcage from both sides. Suddenly a horse finds itself in a clear quiet space where they can relax, find a natural stride, feel their confidence soar and pretend they're Secretariat. If left alone on the lead, they can run like a bat out of hell for about 5 and a half furlongs before genetic reality sets in and they hit a wall.
Munson also saw that in addition to the horse being the only speed in the race, the distance was only 6 furlongs. This meant that the horse ought to have such a huge lead on the rest of the field that he could walk the last half furlong and still win easily. Munson was not the only person to figure this out. When the starting gate opened the horse went off at 23-to-1 instead of his typical odds of 70-to-1.
The race unfolded exactly as Munson had envisioned. The horse opened up 10 lengths on the field going down the back stretch and this increased to almost 20 as he came out of the clubhouse turn and entered the top of the stretch. It was then that Munson noticed the dozen or so seagulls that were picking through the horse shit on the track about 100 yards from the finish line. Munson's horse came down the stretch like a locomotive and was 20 yards from the birds when they exploded in a frantic upward blast of flapping and screeching. Munson's horse freaked, threw the jockey, made a radical left turn and jumped the rail.
Saturday morning we ate breakfast at table number 5 in the Howard Johnson's coffee shop. It was obvious that it was table number 5 as each table in the restaurant had a huge number printed on a placard at each table. It was impossible not to take notice of the number 5 at our table and it was given serious consideration as we discussed wagering strategies. The drive to the track was brutal. We were 40 miles away and with Sea World, the Zoo, the beaches and Del Mar's weekend crowd, it took us nearly 2 hours to get to the track.
During the lengthy drive the impression made on us by table number 5 began to fade. Munson thought it unwise to latch on to the first thing staring us in the face and wanted to see if there was something else that deserved our attention. He began feverishly taking notes as Walter called out a stream of every digit he could spot on license plates, highway signs, mileage markers and billboards. Munson was still making notes as we pulled into the parking lot with 25,000 other people.
I remember little from that day other than we lost every race; and that 7 of the day's 9 races were won by the number 5 horse – an extremely rare thing to behold. God knows why, but none of us bet the 5 horse in the first race. When it won at a double digit payoff we figured we had missed our one big chance and began looking for a different number in the next race. I have permanently repressed the emotions I experienced when the 5 horse won the second race.
For the third race we ignored the 5 again, knowing the chances for 3 out of 3 were highly unlikely. As the day wore on, the more races the 5 horse won, the more we resisted betting it. At first it was based on probability but it eventually became a matter of principle. It wasn't until the 6th race ended that a horse with a number other than 5 was led into the winner's circle. We hadn't bet on the winner but we cheered like maniacs during the stretch run when we realized the 5 horse was going to lose.
Over dinner that evening we resolved to carry on with our quest. Surely the path to the easy life did exist for those who had the courage and determination to pursue it. After all, it had willingly revealed itself to us but we had failed to place our trust in it. We went back to Del Mar the next day and when we were done we didn't have a dime left between us. On the way home we had to stop in Orange County to borrow gas money from Munson's brother.