We often laud those in our industry like grooms and trainers, who work more hours in one year than many people do in two, but what about the professional horseplayer? If people think it’s as easy as picking up a program and watching a few replays they’d be mistaken. TROT caught up with one of Canada’s finest from over the past four-plus decades and he gave us not only an idea of how many hours he’s put in, but also shared a few old stories, and educated us on a myriad of other things that he and other big bettors have been up against over the years. By Dan Fisher.
For many years - and still to a large degree today - our drivers, along with the horses themselves of course, have been placed in the brightest spotlight, in regard to the importance of the role they play within our sport. As the years passed by, trainers were eventually added to that list, and more recently, owners, breeders and caretakers have started to be recognized as those who play vital roles in the game’s success. But one occupation that still doesn’t seem to receive much recognition - and their role is crucial to say the least - is the professional horseplayer. Maybe part of a dying breed, thanks in-part to things like software programs that can swing win odds tremendously at two seconds to post, and the legalization of North American sports wagering, for many years it’s been the professional horseplayer that’s played a huge part in keeping our purses up and our sport alive. TROT recently had an in-depth conversation with one of the biggest and most successful professional Canadian horseplayers from over the past four-plus decades, and even though his choice was to remain *anonymous, he truly enlightened us as to just how much work it really was, the expenses the job actually carried with it, and a myriad of other obstacles that most horsepeople would never have even thought about. Working hours easily comparable to any caretaker or trainer, our professional horseplayer may have made a good living at the end of the day, but it was never easy, the stress-levels on both him and his family-life were incredible, and he only got out of it what he put in. If you’re one that thinks our grooms may be underappreciated, just read this and you’ll probably see that you can add ‘professional horseplayer’ to that same list of people we don’t always give enough credit to when it comes to helping horse racing survive.
*For the purpose of anonymity, our subject will be identified in the feature as ‘Kevin’.
“I was good friends with some of the top [OJC] trainers and drivers,” confides Kevin, a successful horseplayer for over 40 years, “even before I was playing seriously. But the last thing I ever did with them was solicit horses (laughing). Sometimes I actually used to hang out with one of the leading drivers. We’d have a bite to eat after the races and things like that, but trust me when I say that I was much better off not talking about horses with him (laughing).
“I also know that I was criticized at times over the years - other people have come and told me this - just because of the relationships I had. People thought that I was somehow privy to some special information. Believe me, any so-called special information has only cost me money during my career (laughing). I’m serious about that. You know, I can’t say 1000% that it didn’t help down the road… when you know about intent, even though it usually cost you money on that particular night, the fact that somebody thought about something, in a certain situation, can come back later on to reward you. If you’re sharp, and if you can interpret people in the right way, put the pieces back in the right order… but in the long run, any special information I received was a losing strategy.
“The truth is that being a horseplayer isn’t just about knowing the horses. It’s also about knowing the personalities of the drivers and the trainers - and the horses too. In a way it’s really a study in psychology,” Kevin reasons. “You have to be able to read both horses and people.
“More than anything though, playing the horses successfully carried a heavy workload. People don’t realize that. I mean, there were times, after I started a family, when I took my two small children to the qualifiers in the morning - there was just no way around it. I had to be there to be successful.
“When pretty much everybody was stabled at the track, I’d go to work there many mornings too - usually by 7:30 am or so. I struck up a friendship with the security guards by bringing donuts and coffee to the guard shack on Queen St. and they’d let me into the Greenwood grandstand to watch the horses train.
“I got to know all the horses by watching them warm-up and race at night, and then I could usually tell, in the mornings, which horse it was by a combination of who was sitting behind them, their markings and the equipment they wore. I’d watch everyone train until the track was empty, and I’d make notes. I’d usually be home around noon, go over my notes and my program for that night, then have some lunch and take a nap before heading back to the track for work.”
Not unlike the hours kept by grooms and trainers, Kevin, one of the most successful Canadian horseplayers in recent memory, put in a LOT of hours mastering his craft.
“When I got married and had kids, I would usually do most of my charts and program work late at night, when my kids were asleep in bed. Most nights this meant being up working until at least four o’clock in the morning or so,” he shares. “I definitely didn’t have as much time for it after the kids came along, but it was a stressful job and there were no shortcuts. I had a lot of good years but there were some losing years too. Years where you actually lost money after working all year - just think about that,” he relates.
Why would anyone choose to live such an uneasy lifestyle, one might wonder?
“The best advice that I ever got - ever - was from one of the most successful drivers to ever race on the OJC Circuit,” he shares. “It was after the races one night… I was still young. I wasn’t certain yet that I was going to try and do it full time. That night I just asked him point-blank if this was a trade worth pursuing, and he looked me right in the eye and he said, ‘You’ll always get your money’s worth here’. And that was all I needed to hear. I didn’t need to hear that this guy was doing this and that guy was doing that… just tell me that. And that’s when I went to work.
“At the time my father had a job lined up for me to start down at the Toronto Stock Exchange… low level job… learn the game. I was interested in the stock market, and I was very good at math, but it was that driver’s words that turned me in this direction.
“That was really all I needed to hear. I know it’s not always a perfect sport either though, and I even said this to the decision-makers once: ‘There’s going to be house numbers here. There will be house numbers 50 years after we’re gone, if this game is still here, and there were house numbers 50 years before we got here. There will always be house numbers’. Those are races where you don’t get your fair shot, because you can’t possibly control every individual. That’s just part of this game… they’re going to be there. I told them though, ‘They just can’t be there eight times a night’.
“Believe me, I’ve been dealt my share of house numbers - like anybody who has been playing this game a long time has. Sometimes a guy just needed to win - to eat. And somehow he’d win. That’s just my opinion, but that was just the kind of thing that would happen the odd time. Sometimes competition would take a back seat to a thing like that, and you can live with one or two of those. But it all goes back to the character of the people who are competing. For 30-40 years around here we were blessed to have so many honourable people like Doug Brown, Steve Condren, Paul MacDonell, Roger Mayotte, and so many others. But it always has to stay that way, and the decision-makers have to care enough to make sure it’s that way today, or the future won’t look very bright.
“I’ll tell you a story though, that will tell you exactly how much honour was in the game then. There was a regular driver that liked to make the odd bet. He wasn’t a big player - he might make a few $200 bets a night or something. When I was playing big, I always used the same four or five tellers, and through the grapevine one night at Greenwood, I found out, for a fact, that this driver had bet a 7-1 exactor, for $200, in a certain race - and he was driving the #1. The #7 was the chalk, and the #1 had gate speed and was 12/1 or something. It made sense that it was going to line-up 7-1 and that’s what he had bet. Sure enough, it sits that way around the track, but in the stretch when the #1 tipped out, he went by the #7 anyway. The guy driving the #1 had a $200 exactor the other way and he ran over his own money because his horse was good enough to win that night. THAT is how honourable those guys were, and it’s because of things like that, I had the confidence that I could make a living at it.
“There was just as much honour among the gamblers too,” Kevin states, “and I can tell you a little story about that as well.
“It was before I was playing the horses in a serious way, but I was friends with an NHL player who liked to play the horses, and who was in town to play the Leafs one weekend - I was visiting him at his house in Mississauga. There was a well-known NHL referee that frequented the track also, and that day, at my friend’s house, I watched the two of them filling out Greenwood Pick-6 cards together. I was watching his game against the Leafs the next night, and that same ref threw my friend out of the game (laughing). I always remembered that because just the night before they were making bets together.
“The world was a different place back then,” Kevin sighs.
The racetrack atmosphere was different then as well. Going to work at a place with that kind of electricity had to be something that would help draw the young man into the lifestyle. And it was electric.
“The atmosphere at the track back then was really incredible,” Kevin agrees. “We were really the only game in town. I remember one night, again, before I was doing it for a living, when the Pick-6 was still a fairly new bet that was getting pretty popular. I knew a guy that was alive on it through four legs, that had a few big longshots come across early. He asked me if he should sell it and he wanted to know what it was worth. So I ran it to the area at Greenwood they called ‘The Snake Pit’. I shopped it around quickly and got an offer of $2,000 for it - he was alive onto the favourites in the last two legs. I ran it back to him with the offer and he said to sell, so I ran it back again and got him the cash. The ticket went dead in the very next race,” Kevin smirks. “But things like that were a lot of fun to be a part of.
“When I started doing really well though, in the late 80s and early 90s, I had a table in the dining room every night. You know, people might think that I didn’t have a lot of expenses, but you have to remember that all tickets were bet and cashed with real money in those days. For a number of years I was churning a lot more money than most. I was carrying a lot of cash into that place every night, and hopefully leaving with even more. I wasn’t doing that without some help either, so I always had two or three guys with me. We’d split up the cash between us to carry it, and I’d use them to run my bets as well. People knew who I was and I just had too many people bugging me and trying to follow me to the windows. So every night I had a table for three or four in the dining room, and even back then that was around $300 a night. It wasn’t cheap, but I also never got robbed or shot leaving there at night, so I guess it was worth it,” he laughs.
“I was never the kind of guy to flash tickets or brag about winning either, but like I said, it was different back then - you had to walk up and stand there to cash your tickets and collect your money, so there weren’t too many secrets. But I always tried to share. I shared with everyone; my guys, the waitresses, the caretakers of the horses I owned, my trainers. Mostly with the tellers though - a few of those tellers made a lot of money off of me over the years. But I always thought that it was good karma to share.
“So I was churning all of this money every night, and one night a friend, Brian Haryott, who was a big owner, sat with me and he saw me paying my bill at the end of the night… a night where I had lost a lot of money. He was shocked that the bill wasn’t covered. He actually went and spoke to some of the OJC guys from back then about it, without me even knowing, but they still wanted me to pay. Everything was different back then though, and like I said, they were the only game in town… but then they started piping in The Meadowlands feed. The pools were separate back then and the OJC guys were taking 30 points from us off the top. I spoke to them about cutting a deal and they weren’t interested, so I reached out to a friend at Caesars Palace in Vegas. They definitely took care of me, so I started flying down there to play instead. They covered my suite, my electronics, my groceries… I even had a limo driver assigned to me.
“I did, indirectly, help get a guy fired from there too though,” he flatly states. “And it cost me five grand too. Back then, the race books were booking everything… the money didn’t go into the pools at the track, so the pit boss or someone there had to approve the big bets. Thelma O’Connor had a nice horse at Greenwood that couldn’t get around the turns so they sent him to Bill Robinson at The Meadowlands. I knew he’d get around there, but I couldn’t get to Vegas that night, so I had a friend of mine that was there make the bet. If I had been there they probably wouldn’t have taken it, because they knew me, but they took it from him. The horse went off at 30/1 or something and I hit for $50,000… and the guy that took the bet got fired. I was talking to my friend the next day and he told me about the poor guy. He said ‘I gave him $5,000’. We both agreed that it was the best thing to do.”
Although it sounds extravagant, the life of the horseplayer isn’t all roses - even when they are winning. And sometimes it’s even worse when they’re winning.
“A lot of people could be nasty towards you when they heard you were doing well. Not unlike with certain high-percentage trainers, there can be a lot of jealousy and finger-pointing, and things said about you ‘cheating’. I learned though, and I’d tell some of the other guys, ‘Just don’t engage. What do you have to gain from it?’ I’d say ‘Just let them talk and then take their money’. It just wasn’t worth it.”
But during one period, when Kevin was cashing an extraordinary number of multi-leg wagers, someone - he never did find out who - took it a step further.
“I was actually at the Mohawk Inn one night after the races,” he shares. “Man if I only had half the money back that I’ve spent in that place (laughing). This OPP officer in plainclothes comes up and shows me his badge, and tells me that he’s been asked to investigate me due to complaints about possible cheating that was going on. I was basically just cashing too many big tickets at the time it seemed. We met for breakfast the next day - I mean, I had nothing to hide so I didn’t care. But it was pretty deflating, when you’re innocent, and just working hard and doing well. Now you’re actually being investigated by the police.
“Things have happened to me, like this, that people either would never imagine, or would think it’s not such a big deal,” Kevin laments. “Another hurdle currently facing Canadian horseplayers, for example, is an approximate 7% fee on any exotic wagers that we make on U.S. tracks. It’s a fee that really hurts our ability to make a living. Again, a $5 bettor might think not much of it, but they should. It’s the principle. These computer wagers that can really mess up the win-odds at the last minute, have made win-wagering difficult. So now you’re trying to bet exotics and they’re stealing an extra 7% on you. It’s really unfair. 7% is a big year! A year where a gambler makes 7% on their bets is a year where they could get a new car, or spend a month in the Caribbean maybe. And they’re just taking it from us.”
To put this into perspective, someone that churns $5 million in a year - whether it’s betting on horse racing or basketball or anything else - and can turn a profit of just 7%, has a gross income that year of $350,000. So a 7% fee like this one, that barely affects a smaller bettor, is obviously a huge deal to a serious player.
Going back to the police investigation from years earlier, “the problem with the OPP officer lingered for a while, but it eventually went away, because they had absolutely zero evidence to support an investigation. I also asked him if he wanted to shadow me for a few days and see why I was winning. He sat at my table for a few nights and watched me work, but when he was supposed to meet me at the track early in the morning to watch horses train, he didn’t show up,” Kevin now laughs. “I did go to the police station to confirm he was real, and I did talk briefly to my lawyer about it. My lawyer used to buy in to some of my Pick-tickets for 10% though (laughing) so he was ready to roll up his sleeves and get into it with them if need be. It was probably just some rumours from some jealous people,” he laments.
“If there was one story though, that I could share from over the years, that would adequately show the hard work that went into it, the importance of the accumulated knowledge from over the years, the excitement, and the payoff, it would probably be this one:
“In February, 2005 there was a Pick-7 that hadn’t gone in a few days and the pot was going to be pretty big. It was a Sunday afternoon card at Woodbine, but I have to explain to you how those afternoon cards affected my life and working hours first.
“With a family, as I mentioned, I did most of my work late at night and into the morning, so when there was a Friday night card, I was up all night afterwards doing my work for Saturday afternoon. Then, the same thing on Saturday night for the Sunday afternoon card. I was basically going on no sleep for the entire weekend going into this Pick-7, but the pool was going to be huge and the work needed to be done.
“I remember that we - I had a few partners on the ticket - basically keyed two horses and I built the tickets around that… what I liked to do was to pretty much key two horses. It was basically like betting a big [daily] double where you weren’t killing your odds at the same time. The two keys were both trotters, and they were both going to be going off between 3/1 and 6/1. We spent about $7,000 on that one sequence - that was a pretty big bet, even for my partners and I, on just one sequence. It was really like betting a $3,000 daily double along with several other coverage tickets.
“Anyway, by the time the races started I was exhausted, and could barely keep my eyes open. I was watching from home on the Bell ExpressVu by then, and I was taping the races onto a VHS tape, like I did for every card. We hit a $90 horse in the first leg, so that was huge, and then we got the next two legs right also. The first key was in the 4th leg and it was Ronnie Waples driving his good little trotter by Earl - JM Vangogh. The big favourite was Stiletto, and Rick [driver, Zeron] had been really hot at that time. Stiletto was a big, beautiful, long-striding trotter, and Ronnie’s horse was just a little guy, but I knew Ronnie’s horse. I knew he was tough and that he had a big heart, and I just knew if the two went to battle, that JM Vangogh wouldn’t let that other horse by. He was a fighter. Ronnie cut it out [at 7/2] and Ricky sat in the two-hole. Stiletto had the whole lane to go by him but couldn’t. I was right. Ronnie won by a head or something.
“It took all the strength I had in the world, watching that stretch drive, and then my head literally fell asleep on my clipboard - out cold on my desk. Back-to-back all-nighters and I physically couldn’t stay awake anymore. I literally slept through the next two legs and when I woke up Jackie Mo was on top with the other key horse [Honor The Cash] at the half - in the last leg - and he wasn’t really a front-ender either! I knew that horse from his previous time in the States, and he won easily [at 9/2]. But I had slept through two of the legs so I wasn’t sure if we had even won. I had to rewind the tape to watch it, and it turned out that we had the only winning ticket.”
The Pick-7 at Woodbine that afternoon paid $435,235.65.
“I was lucky enough to have a few big scores over the years, but that one was the most memorable because of that stretch drive [between JM Vangogh and Stiletto]. Ronnie Waples had been a favourite of mine my entire life also, so it was a very pleasant day,” he smiles.
Admittedly someone that no longer plays anywhere near the amounts he did over the past 40 years or more, Kevin now mainly focuses his efforts on the Thoroughbreds, for a myriad of reasons, while still betting the WEG Standardbred races on cards “when they’re offering big carryovers or mandatory payouts.”
When asked to share however, he does have some serious concerns when it comes to racing’s future.
“I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but young people don’t pay for anything anymore. They have an app to get HBO, whether it’s on their parents’ account or some other way. They just have ways of getting stuff for free… they just don’t pay for things anymore. They have a network, and if one guy figures it out they all get it - free. That’s one problem.
“As far as betting on horses… If I’m going to bring a 20-year-old, who has these betting apps on their phones now, to the track, and I’m going to show them that you come here and you bet, I’m going to explain to them that the track is going to take 20 cents on every dollar first of all. Then when I explain pari-mutuel [wagering] they’re going to ask who else is betting, and I’m going to say, ‘Everybody who wants to. The guys driving the horses can bet, and the trainers can bet. The professional gamblers and the owners can bet’. They’re then going to say, ‘So I’m betting $5 on a horse, and everyone else that I’m betting against knows a lot more than me? And I’m supposed to do this ten times a night?’ Many of them would then say, ‘I’m not going to do this’.
“We now promote ourselves - with the prices we charge for food and beverage - as an entertainment game. But I don’t know anybody that finds losing their money to be entertaining.
“And even if they do take to it, and get the hang of it, just wait until they bet $5 to win on a 3/1 shot that wins, but flipped to 1/5 after the wings folded because six guys sitting in a computer room, with a $1 million bankroll, just dropped the odds and took their profits.
“Where do I sign up to participate in this game?
“Because, they can also bet on the Leaf game, which they might think that they know more about. Their odds won’t change after they bet, the take is usually about 10%, and the bet lasts them three hours. It makes our game a tough sell these days,” he suggests.
“We have gotten some new revenues through the legalized sports wagering. We’re only on Bet365 right now, but we will be on all of them eventually. But most of them [newbies] have little chance of winning with us. Betting sports, they’ll win and lose and win and lose - but they’ll churn. The money has to churn. Racing people need to realize this. If they don’t win sometimes, and they’re up against it with us to do so, then there’s no churn. And that’s bad.”
He may not have all the answers - nobody does - but it’s very obvious that the man who worked hard to make a good living as a horseplayer truly cares about the future of the sport.
And as far as all that hard work he put in goes, when it’s suggested to him that he worked just as hard over the years as most longtime grooms or trainers, Kevin partially deflects.
“The hours may have been the same but it wasn’t the same kind of physical labour that horsepeople put themselves through. I really don’t know anybody that’s been in this business for decades who isn’t half-crippled now from it,” he states.
“There’s really no exception to hard work though. I remember when Joe Stutzman was starting out, I’d see him in the Greenwood grandstand, at 11:30 at night, even sometimes with his wife and brand new baby, watching replays and looking for horses to claim I knew right then that he was going to be successful. He wasn’t across the street, drinking at the OP (Orchard Park Tavern) or giving his money away at the strippers or something.
“Playing the horses, from my side of it, was no different - you got out of it what you put into it. The worst thing that ever happened to me really, was when they started making replays available to everyone. My charts and program notes were impeccable. I could watch a race one time and know everything that went on, but a lot of people couldn’t do that, so when everyone gained access to the replays it really hurt me.
“In the end, the hours were long, and the job carried a lot of stress, but I’m glad I chose to do it. I’ve met a lot of great people and had a lot of great times. To be honest, I loved it to death.”
This feature originally appeared in the April issue of TROT Magazine. Subscribe to TROT today by clicking the banner below.
