This was a horse my father owned when he was in his 20's right before he got into training.
Anyway, a friend of his named Dave Grassi's favorite story to tell centers around this horse. The story always starts off with D. Grass calling me over to a table and telling someone "this is the man whos father ruined my life!" before he proceeds to tell the story.
To make a long story short - D. Grass gets talked into driving with my father to Detroit. He'd never been to a racetrack before. As he tells it, my father bought him lunch (a trait I didn't inherit) in the clubhouse - and he waited for the race. He asked if he should bet anything on the race - and my father said "give me a hundred" and bet him $50 to win and $50 to place on the horse.
The horse romped. After he collects - he sits back and goes "this is beeeeeeeeautiful ... had a nice lunch, won a few hundred bucks" followed by "and now I'm only $2 million + in the hole from betting horses since"
Basically, if he's out over $2 million betting horses since - and I doubt people who know him would dispute that - that would put his handle over $10 million.
Basically, a simple $50 win/place bet on a winning short-priced horse and a free lunch turned into probably $10 million in handle.
Obviously, D. Grass is a degenerate and most would have thrown in the towell after early failures - but it gets to my point on targeted selected giveaways. Skilled fantasy football and baseball players are a group I would aggressively target if I was in marketing for a race track. Obviously you'd also want to aim for higher paid city employees, managers of car dealerships, you could try lawyers and small business owners... friends of the sharper regular bettors etc. I think your chances of hooking them certainly aren't as good however.
02-11-2011, 12:08 PM
Wonderful Date
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