The Best Race Day of Year? You Bet

Sometimes, people come up to me and ask, “Mike, what is the Breeders’ Cup?” “Do the breeders actually run?” “How big is their cup?” “Is there one big cup, or seven small cups, or what?” “What’s the difference between a juvenile filly and a distaff?” “Is a distaff an old filly?” “How come nobody lets a juvenile gelding race?” “Isn’t that Breeders’ apostrophe supposed to be before the S?”

What do I look like, some gigantic horse brain? (Most would say the opposite.)

All I know is, Saturday’s big barn dance at Hollywood Park is a day at the races like no other. That teeny-weeny Kentucky Derby lasts only two minutes. Trust me, nothing memorable lasts only two minutes. Get stuck in a Louisville restroom line, you could miss the whole thing. I have pumped self-serve gas that took longer than a Kentucky Derby.

Catch a ride to the corner of Century and Prairie by 10:55 a.m.--10 o’clock, to be safe--and you can see seven derbies, back to back to back to back to back to back to back.

OK, so you can’t name all the horses in all seven races. You couldn’t name all the Florida Marlins, either.

I go home $14 poorer from every Breeders’ Cup, after betting on my seven losers. The horses I bet are so slow, the jockeys invite children up for pony rides. The only pictures they ever pose for are paintings. My horses share the lead early . . . and then somebody opens the starting gate. I once told a guy at a mutuel window, “Give me $2 on every horse in the race.” They all finished fourth.

Easy come, easy go.

I remember what Danny Thomas, the comedian, once said: “A racetrack is the only place where windows clean people.”

To me, it’s worth every penny. I don’t even mind the dough I spend on the Daily Racing Form, which I buy for the articles, not for the swimsuit issue. To handicap a race, to choose a horse, to place a bet, I never tire of this procedure, although I do have difficulty understanding what everything means. For example: All these damn fractions. Can’t we round off these numbers, make it easier to follow?

I forget how the Breeders’ Cup came to be, or who came up with that name. (If they had called it the Super Cup, we could use Roman numerals after it.) As best I can recall, the Triple Crown races had gained a reputation for crowning the greatest horse in racing, when all they did was crown the greatest horse between the ages of 2 and 4.

This was unfair to older horses, who claimed age discrimination.

Secretariat laughed, watching the Belmont at the farm on his TV. He would shake his head and say, “Man, I could still beat these kids by 33 lengths.”

Eventually, thoroughbred hotbeds like California and Florida demanded a piece of the action. Year after year, the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont would be run at the same tracks. I don’t know about you, but for me, Pimlico loses its charm about the 30th or 40th time. I enjoy listening to “My Old Kentucky Home” once a year at Churchill Downs, but let’s face it, nobody likes Maryland songs, even in Maryland.

Now in its 14th year, the Breeders’ Cup brings daylong excitement to a sport that uses a stopwatch. (The horses I bet, you could clock with an hourglass. But that’s a different story.)

From the first race, a 1 1/16-mile filial pursuit in which I will undoubtedly wager on Countess Diana as a sentimental gesture, to the climactic 1 1/4-mile Classic, a $4.4-million dustbuster in which I intend to bet on Dowty, because it’s the closest a horse has ever come to being named after me, I will use scientific logic to pick my winners.

The second race, the Sprint, is six furlongs. A furlong is 220 yards, for those of you who turn to me for inside horse racing information.

I know Hollywood Park will do an exceptional job Saturday, handling these seven runs for the roses. Come early, bet often. Remember, the race can’t start until the guy with the long trumpet blows.

And be sure to bet on the California-bred horses. They will be the ones wearing the sunglasses.