What’s the opposite of a bad beat?

How about this one, from a friend of mine who for the purposes of this blog (and honoring our tradition this summer) we’ll call Mr. Hooper.

Mr. Hooper is a sharp player. He works hard, he wins, and he even has other people pay him to do their work for them. I’ve heard some people complain about these type of arrangements with the line, “If so-and-so knows so much, why does he sell his picks?” Well, believe me from experience, it’s really easy to do all the work and still do everything right and lose 20 bets in a row. Especially if you’re picking longshots like he does. So to be able to have some semblance of a normal life with like, a budget and everything, it makes sense to stabilize things a bit with actual pay-by-the-hour work.

Anyway, now that I’ve established Mr. Hooper’s bona fides, let me tell you what an idiot he is.

Like many sharp players, he liked PEARL IN THE SAND in last Monday’s feature, the Coronation Cup. SHe was only a maiden, but had Euro races good enough to win and a little trip excuse from her USA debut. Best of all, she was 20s on the Morning Line. He went online and bet $200 across on the filly, representing the last of the cash in one of his online accounts. Turns out, she wasn’t quite fast enough for sprinting in the USA. She ran OK, galloped out best, but did not his the board. Hooper went back online later in the day to replenish the account, only to see that his balance wasn’t zero at all but was $2,390.

So what the hell happened? Here’s what happened: the knucklehead had assumed that the feature was the penultimate race of the day and put in his wager for Race 10, not Race 9. And the #1 in Race 10 was VOLCANO RUN, a Tony D Flow Move Up with Rosie aboard who won and paid $13.60. I’ve been known to yell “KABOOM!” after a big win. This one was more like “kaboom?”

To make matters better, he’s more than doubled his balance since then, parlaying dumb luck into actual, deserved, wins. Just goes to show that even the wiseguys get lucky sometimes. As for me, as far as I’m concerned, he can buy the rounds for the rest of the summer.

BANKROLL PLAY:

Race 4: $100 win on #7 ADJACENT

I’m going back to the Shug McGaughey turf well again today, though it hasn’t done us much good in the blog this season. But I like this mare here, coming off two straight Flow compromised appearances. Last time she couldn’t overcome the slow pace, speed biased turf and wide run. Two back she was too close in a race (and on a course) that favored closers. Let’s hope today things work out just right.

RESULTS: -$831.35