The Track of the Czars : At Moscow’s Hippodrome, Even the Thoroughbreds Tend to Veer Left

I am a rube with a ruble.

Taking a Sunday afternoon off from the Goodwill Games, several American sportswriters, following natural instincts, have found a race track, the Hippodrome, about three miles from the Kremlin.

We are standing in line to put our bets down, which tells you all you need to know about American sportswriters. Four or five thousand miles from home, unable to read a word of the program and knowing nothing about the horses or the jockeys except their names, we are still willing, eager even, to push our rubles through the window.

We are not the only ones. The lines are orderly until about two minutes before post time, when the bettors farthest from the window begin to shove. Some even attempt to break into the line. I doubt that this is the way Marx envisioned it. Groucho, maybe. But not Karl.

When I reach the front of the line, the woman behind the window says something in Russian.

Assuming that she wants to know the number of my horse, I hold up four fingers and hand her one ruble, $1.41 according to the official exchange rate.

Officially, you can bet as little as 50 kopecks (70 cents), but no more than 10 rubles ($14.08) on each race. There are, of course, ways around this. You can bet at more than one window. Or you can deal with one of the illegal private bookmakers lurking in the shadows. They usually give better odds.

But you also are gambling that you won’t get caught by one of the many policemen at the track, although the bookmakers assure you that some of their best customers are policemen.

The woman at the window says something else in Russian.

The man behind me gives me a shove.

I hold up four fingers again.

The lady punches a ticket, handing over a receipt that looks like one you would get at a grocery store.

Why No. 4?

I will share my system with you. He is the favorite.

According to the tote board at the center of the track, the only place where gambling information is available, 49% of the tickets available on No. 4 have been sold. Each horse starts at 100%, the number decreasing as bets are placed. No odds are listed.

I also like the name of the horse, Kazar, which translates to Quasar, and the driver, a Mr. Kuzlov, who is identified in the program as a master rider of international class. The Sunday before, he had driven the winner, Kipr, of the Soviet Union’s most prestigious harness race, the All-Union Prize.

This particular Sunday is the Day of the Fisherman. It seems as if every day in Moscow honors one type worker or another. This is the fisherman’s day. Of the 18 races on the card, 17 for trotters and one for thoroughbreds, the 13th is the feature, and is called the Day of the Fisherman Prize.

Running in the ninth race, Kazar demonstrates why he is the favorite by winning easily.

But even though it is not a close race, it is remarkable how little noise the crowd makes. As the horses enter the stretch, there is a murmur from the crowd. Nothing more. One American who has been to the track here often says no one in the crowd wants to attract the attention of the police.

The murmur is at its loudest when the official results are posted. Kazar has paid three rubles on a one-ruble ticket.

But when I go to collect my rubles, the woman at the window will not pay.

She points to the numbers on ticket, indicating that I was at the daily double window when I placed the bet. That was the reason for the confusion earlier. When I held up four fingers a second time, I also was betting on No. 4 in the 10th race.

There are windows for each of the four kinds of bets you can place:

--You can play the one, which is a simple bet on the winner. There are no place or show bets.

--You can play the twice first, which is the equivalent of a daily double. If you pick the winners in two consecutive races, you win.

--You can play a pair, which requires choosing the first two finishers in a single race. It does not matter in which order they finish.

--You can play the triple express, choosing the winners in three straight races.

The payoff on a one-ruble ticket for hitting the triple express for the seventh, eighth and ninth races Sunday was 540.90 rubles, or $761.83. According to Tass, the Soviet Union’s official news agency, the largest payoff in the last decade was 5,200 rubles, or $7,323.94, for a one-ruble ticket.

Later, after leaving the track, I asked an American expert on the USSR how Soviet officials justify something as capitalistic as speculating on horses in a socialistic society.

“If the Soviets had to justify every inconsistency in their ideology and their reality, they would spend all of their time justifying,” he said.

They would just as soon foreigners not see it, however.

When inquiring about the track Sunday morning at the Goodwill Games press center, we ran into a language barrier with information officers, who had been extremely helpful in previous days in directing us toward the ballet, museums and art galleries.

Finally, one officer told us that the track was closed.

We went anyway.

When we arrived, we became part of a capacity crowd of more than 5,000, none of whom had brought binoculars. The people who frequent the track here obviously are not from the same class as those who spend Sunday afternoons at their country dachas.

This must not have been Ladies Day because there were only a handful of women at the track. Tom Callahan of Time magazine said he had seen better dressed people at a rescue mission.

Yet, horse racing tradition in the Soviet Union is rich.

Racing has been held regularly in Moscow since 1834, when it was the sport of czars. There are two tracks here, one on the outskirts of town that has programs only on Saturdays, and the Hippodrome, which has races on Sunday afternoons and Wednesday nights.

The primary season runs from mid-May to early September, although there also is racing in the snow for a short time during the winter, when desperate horseplayers have been known to trade fur hats and woolen scarfs for rubles to bet.

Moscow’s original wooden Hippodrome was destroyed by fire in 1953 but was replaced two years later by a stucco building whose architect apparently was influenced by the original Roman Hippodrome. There are eight columns at the entrance to the clubhouse, which has giant wooden doors and stained glass windows. On the roof is a statue of a chariot and four horses.

It no doubt was magnificent at one point, but it has been allowed to deteriorate. The paint is peeling in the corridors and restrooms are filthy. The grass in the infield is overgrown and two ornate fountains do not work. Santa Anita it is not.

Inside, from the upper deck, which is the second deck, there is a view of the Kremlin spires. Otherwise, except for the hammer and sickle on the equestrian awards stand in the infield, there is no reminder that you are in the Soviet Union. The closed-circuit television sets are from Japan, the computerized tote system from Finland. This is one of the few places in Moscow where you can escape the political banners and billboards.

Czar Nicholas kept his horses near Red Square in a handsome stable, which has been converted into an exhibition hall. All the race horses now are owned by the state, which should be embarrassed to claim most of them. By world standards, they are, at best, second rate.

When Joe Goldstein of New York was the publicist for Roosevelt Raceway in Long Island, he used to bring over a Soviet horse or two each year for the Roosevelt International. They got headlines but never finished in the money.

The horse I have in the 10th race looks old enough to be John Henry’s sire. His name is Kamzol, which is an 18th Century vest, and his driver is a Mr. Kaznin, who is designated in the program as second category. Based on the drivers’ winnings, there are four levels, from master rider of international class to third category.

According to the tote board, only 4% of the tickets available on No. 4 have been sold. If I had known what I was doing, I never would have bet on him.

Somehow, he wins, giving me the twice first. The payoff on my one-ruble is 18 rubles, about $25.35. Ignorance is bliss.

DR, PETE BENTOVOJA / Los Angeles Times