Santa Anita January 5 ROI Wagers go here

[cal828]

Originally Posted by JolyB

I must confess to having committed a cardinal sin of race watching in yesterday's 10th race at Santa Anita. I was alive to 4 horses in my Pick 3 ROI wager, and was delighted to see 2 of them (#7 Getaloadofthis and #3 Bitter Ring Home) pull away from the rest of the field and duel down the stretch. Like many horseplayers, I concentrated on the stretch duel and even allowed myself to think about the will pays on each of them as they neared the wire. #3 was going to pay about 3 times as much as #7, so my rooting naturally focused that way. I was so intent on that duel that I really didn't notice #10 Derby Factor (whom I didn't have) make a perfectly timed late move on the outside to pass them both just before the wire. In my mind, I was already heading to the window, so to speak.

Made me think that when we have a wager on a race, we watch that race very differently than if we are just watching without anything on the line. By focusing on "our" horses, we miss very interesting things that are happening elsewhere in the race. It's human nature, of course, but how many skillful rides do we miss because we are concentrating on the mistakes the jockey on "our" horse is making?

Nothing more exciting than to see your horse or horses in the lead and likely to give you a nice score and nothing more deflating to see some long shot beat them in the last jumps to the wire. One thing about it though, you picked the right sequence. I played one race before that one and hit it on my smaller bet, but still will only get less than half my $100 back. In real wagering, I could probably count the pick-3s I've played on one hand. Maybe I can count it as a learning experience? I get pretty tired of those pesky learning experiences.