Beautiful day for Preakness yesterday. We had a huge group this year. It's a family tradition for my wife, ever since her dad started going years ago. This is my fourth year going. We sit in the stands with the civilized people, rather than in the infield with the drunken idiots.
We arrived yesterday just before the 6th race of the day. I like to do a little betting, probably two $2 bets per race, more or less. Usually a little more on the actual Preakness race.
This year, we brought a friend, Heather, whose father is a pretty serious horse race enthusiast. He sent her some tips on the races.
On his advice, I bet a $2 exacta on the sixth race, on #3 Roshani and #4 Lady Digby. Imagine my surprise as they came around to finish in just that order, just ahead of #1 Valbenny, the pre-race favorite. I won $21.40 on that bet, which was a pretty nice way to start the day.
We didn't have any tips for race 7, so I had to make my own decisions. I liked #1, Roman Emperor, one of the favorites, and the wife liked #5, Da' Tara. I was even more surprised to win that exacta, too, paying off $12.
The word on the 8th race was #8, True to Tradition. I put down a $2 bet for a friend on him to place, and one for myself. I made my (so far) only mistake on the betting machine and accidentally bet him to show, but figured I'd keep the ticket anyway. When he finished second, both tickets paid, $5.20 and $4.20.
I didn't win anything else on the night, but I did get to see an impressive win in the Preakness by Big Brown. It sure looks like he has a good shot at the Triple Crown. Last time we had one of those was the year I was born. I didn't see the race.
And I ended the day up $10 (Well, not including what I spent on things other than betting). Any day of betting where you end up with more than you came with is a good day of betting.
After the race, we went to Chiapparelli's in Little Italy in Baltimore for dinner. It was good. They did a nice job serving our huge party, although they were a little late seating us. When you arrive 15 minutes early for a reservation, and get seated 10 minutes late, that's kind of annoying. But it didn't spoil our evening.
All the owners/general
All the owners/general managers at the 'Pacc bet on all sorts of sports happenings. My GM won $10,000 on Preakness. Not sure how he placed his bet, though I imagine it wasn't just on Big Brown to finish, since I don't think it would be worth throwing down that much money on a 2 to 1 favorite. Either way, seeing all of them winning all this money is kind of annoying. I don't want to get sucked in to gambling, but it seems so easy.
He wasn't two to one
He might have been two to one at some point, but by race time I think he was more like one to four. The GM probably bet an exacta or something like that and picked the second and maybe third place finishers, too.
The secret to successful gambling is to treat all money you bet as an instant loss. That is, if you bet $2 on something that happens next week, you have already lost that $2. If you can afford to lose that $2, you're fine. Then, if you do win, awesome. If not, no one comes to break your kneecaps. Or your credit rating.
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