Any stories about...

[phystech]

Horse I owned half of, coming back off a lay-off of 5 months. Had terrible form in his last 4 races going into the lay running Beyers of 38, 48, 22, and 31. Cheap $5k claimer that loved to wing it on the front. Pressure him on the turn, or run eyeballs to him and he'd fold like a tent.

Before the race, trainer tells me he's ready - in all the time I've had horses with this trainer, nary a word had been said - until that day. He'd thrown a bullet in one of his works but otherwise nothing spectacular.

He was sitting at 14-1 with one of Lake's horses taking a lot of money. I wheeled him in exactas, and keyed him a number of triples. I had about $150 in the race, and that's a lot for me.

Frank Douglas had the mount and I hated Frank Douglas. In the paddock, trainer tells Frank to put him on the front and don't look back. Frank straggles him out of the gate and wrestles him back to 3rd. I'd owned this horse for 16 months at this point and he'd never passed a horse - he'd won 3 races for us but always from the lead. And there's Frank rating the horse, going three wide on the first turn - if I could have caught him then, I would have straggled him.

Top of the stretch, he's passed one and got one more to go. Goes past that one and maintains a length and a half lead down the entire stretch to win.

He paid $30. I don't remember what the exacta paid but the tri's were somewhere around $400 for a dollar. I cashed my tickets, put around $6500 in my pockets, gave my trainer a NICE tip, and proceded directly to the horseman's bookkeeper's office to make a deposit into my new personal stable account. Then I went home.

Two weeks later I claimed my own horse for $5k, spent the remainder of the account on bills, put in another $7k for more bills over the next few months and after giving the horse away, walked away a poor man.