Pony up for OTB

For the uninitiated, here's a brief lesson in playing the ponies. A buck fifty buys a program at the OTB parlor. After looking over the printed information (past performances, class, breeding, etc.) and choosing a horse, there are three main ways to bet. You can pick a horse to win, meaning it must come in first; pick to place, meaning it must finish second or better; or pick to show, meaning the horse must finish third or better.

Seasoned horse players rarely bet any of these, though, as the payoff on a heavy favorite is minimum at best -- maybe 5-2 or 2-1. They prefer, instead, to lay their money on exactas, trifectas and pick-sixes, with the exacta -- which requires correctly picking the first and second finishers -- being the most popular. Based on how much money is wagered collectively on any given horse, the odds then slide up and down right until post time.

The real trick is to find the races with the best value, that is, to find the quality horses hidden within the day's program that haven't been heavily wagered on. That's the beauty and the allure of playing the ponies. Unlike dice or roulette it's not so much a game of chance as one of calculated risk. Stories of someone picking Pretty Paula, a 50-1 long shot, because that was the name of their first lay, and then winning $500 when the pathetic nag beats the rest of the field by three lengths are, for the most part, fiction. The guys don't bet on whim; they bet by poring over statistics.

These guys are scientists. A horse's lineage, past performance, whether it's on medication or wearing blinders, the conditions of the track, the distance of the race, whether the horse is a sprinter or a distance runner, among other things, are carefully weighed before making a decision. The smart gamblers take all data, no matter how small, into consideration. They'd sneak into a horse's stall and analyze its stool if they thought it'd give them an advantage.

Above all they decide for themselves. Never once have I seen a seasoned horse player like Jiminy Cricket or Toothless wager based on the opinions of the public handicappers, guys like the New York Post's Anthony Stabile. When it's their money, it's their decision. Immense pride and respectability come with being a stately handicapper. Everyone inside that dilapidated storefront knows the kings from the jesters.

When it comes to handicapping, a slight Italian man named Jimmy is the king of Court Street. He dresses sharply, decked out in a pair of amber glasses, a tan turtleneck and a brown driving cap that rests squarely on the top of his head. He is thin and not physically intimidating, but moves with a casual confidence that suggests he has commanded the respect of others for many years. He is soft-spoken and laughs with a devilish grin. He is wise about horses and is often asked for his opinion. He comes late and leaves early. His socks are made of silk. He is the closest thing to class the joint has ever seen. For Jimmy, OTB is more about socializing than striking it rich. His playfulness is in stark contrast to the wrecking ball of emotional intensity that is Toothless and the hysteria of Jiminy Cricket, who, when he loses (which is often), jumps around the linoleum floor like a hyperactive child, berating the jockeys with a litany of insults. "Chavez, you prick," he yells at the top of his lungs, "where did you learn to ride a horse, you fucking midget?"

With its subtle pecking order and shared history, the Court Street OTB is, in many ways, like a corner bar. The races at the popular tracks like Aqueduct don't begin until noon or 1, but when the regulars swing through the doors on a weekend afternoon, they're greeted with smiles and warm embraces by the guys who've come to play the early cards. For most, it's a chance to talk horses and be around others who've been bitten by the gambling bug. Empathy is an important, and not often found, emotion for gamblers, and, judging from the looks of disbelief on the faces of passersby when they see 60 men gathered around a TV set in the ugly, sweltering room, it must be nice to have someplace to go to feel understood.

Horse racing, like boxing, has long been a sport with an image problem, stemming mainly from its running courtship with legalized gambling. Though the owners, trainers and broadcasters would like to believe that it's the sport of kings, adored by aesthetes who relish the surging power, nimble grace and superior breeding of a prize thoroughbred, it's closer to the truth to say that if the tracks didn't allow gambling, interest would likely rival that toward synchronized swimming.

Watching a pack of slobbering animals run around a dirt circle, no matter how awe inspiring their physical prowess, is awfully boring without the rush of a sawbuck on the line. And the throngs of down-and-outers who cram the off-track betting parlors daily, screaming and cursing with a lack of self-consciousness that comes only after years of hardened gambling and thousands of dollars pissed away, don't do much to help.

"OTBs have ruined racing," a man named Paul who played the ponies for 20 years and who now answers phones for the Gamblers Anonymous hot line, told me. As many as "10,000 people used to attend a weeknight race at Belmont; now it's more like 800. No one goes to the track anymore; they all stay home and place their bets from OTBs."

Perhaps OTB didn't ruin the sport, as Paul suggests -- it just forever altered it. For the most part, the parlors are run-down and dingy places. The addition of a water fountain would likely spoil the regulars rotten. But whatever harm off-site betting did to the "let's go down and chat with the trainer and jockey" camaraderie of old that existed at the track, it had the opposite effect for gamblers. By eliminating the traffic, weather concerns and food, parking and beer prices at the track, OTB made it easy for race fans to do what they like best: gamble.

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