Woodbine has ALL Handicapping Bases
Covered By Jim Mazur
Years ago, Miller Brewing Company introduced Lite Beer and developed an award-winning ad campaign to promote the product. In the prime of the campaign, television commercials typically portrayed a Miller Lite drinker noting that it “Tastes Great” followed by another who observed that it was “Less Filling.” This usually led to a parody of Wild West saloon fights in which every patron got involved in the dispute for no real reason, though in this case it was always a shouting match, and blows were never thrown.
Woodbine Entertainment Group could develop a similar ad campaign to promote its exceptional Handicapping Challenge series. On one side of the Woodbine Trackside Tent could be dozens of horseplayers who favour the “Traditional” contests with the other side populated by handicappers who prefer the “Extreme” form of the challenge.
Variety is the spice of the life but horseplayers usually prefer consistency. The task confronting WEG is which format to promote. Before I get into the pros and cons of WEG’s approach, let me briefly digress and explain both tournament formats.
In the TRADITIONAL handicapping format, a player pays an entry fee (usually distributed 100% for prize money) and then starts with a mythical bankroll (say $20) and is asked to make ten $2 win wagers during the day. The player that accumulates the highest total is the winner. Some contests offer a variation of this format that calls for the player to “bankroll” the wagers and actually bet them in the real mutuel pool. The player then keeps the bankroll at the end of the contest.
Years ago at a tournament at Sports Haven in New Haven, Connecticut a longshot named Mr. Frisky won the Hutchison Stakes at Gulfstream at odds of 100-1. Several players in the tournament were down to their last $2 wager and put it to win on this unlikely runner. They collected $202 and vaulted from last to first in one jump. For many, that was their only winner of the tournament. In response to that particular incident, many contests adopted “CAPS” on the win and place payoffs. In WEG tournaments, the CAPS are 20-1 and 10-1 respectively.
The EXTREME format is appropriately named. Similar to the TRADITIONAL format, the contestant pays an entry fee used for prize money and also puts up a specified bankroll (say $100). But that is where the similarities end. Once the tournament begins, the contestant has total control of how to wager the bankroll. He or she can go “all in” on a single race and bet the $100 to win. Or play a $50 exacta box. They can play Pick 3s or Pick 4s. Anything on the mutuel machine menu is fair game. There are no CAPS on payoffs. At WEG events for each format, the winner or top three finishers also earn an all-expenses paid trip to Las Vegas to compete in the annual DRF/NTRA National Handicapping Championship.
So which format is better? Some say the TRADITIONAL “tastes great.” While an equal number of players think the EXTREME is “less filling.” The author favors the TRADITIONAL mainly because it puts an emphasis on picking winners as opposed to taking swings on exotic wagers with large payouts for those who get it right.
But how about some of the WEG tournament participants, how do they weigh in on the topic? Chris Skinner won the TRADITIONAL ’11 edition of the thoroughbred August tournament, pocketing a $15,525 in purse money plus a trip to the big dance. “I really like both formats,” commented Skinner. “Each format has it pro's and con's. In an EXTREME contest you can have one dollar left and still win the tournament. With the TRADITIONAL format you have to be very patient and pick your spots.” Steve Duffield and his brother Scott have been playing the August tournament since its inception more than 10 years ago. Steve shows five Top 10 finishes including one first place finish for his efforts.
He’s all for the TRADITIONAL format. “The $2 WP format with a Cap on both Win and Place is best because it rewards consistency. No contest should have one race worth more than another,” said Duffield. For those novices in the reading audience, Duffield also offered some free advice. “Handicap races without looking at any odds, then look for value in the 7-1 to 15-1 range. You only need three or four of these over two days to cash.”
To its credit, WEG doesn’t take sides and offers numerous contests and challenges utilizing both formats. For the TRADITIONAL loyalists, there is the Saratoga Challenge in July and the annual summer August challenge, a 2-day event held in the trackside tent coinciding with Travers weekend at Saratoga.
WEG also sponsored six different EXTREME tournaments and provided a berth into the DRF/NTRA National Handicapping Championship for the player who accumulated the highest bankroll cumulatively in all of those tournaments. While the two TRADITIONAL tourneys were strictly thoroughbred affairs, the six EXTREME contests were split evenly between standardbred and thoroughbred race events including the Breeders Crown and Woodbine Mile. Two of the EXTREME events were held at Mohawk Racetrack.
Tastes great. Less filling. In the end, it all boils down to individual player preference. And how about a cold Molson (not a Miller Lite for this Canadian audience!) to those who show versatility and play in both types of tournaments?
Quebec has Produced Some Great Stars
By Paul Delean
For a province that hasn’t had thoroughbred racing in almost four decades, Quebec has produced a surprising number of successful jockeys.
Constant Montpellier, Daniel David, Steven Bahen and Michel Lapensee all topped 1,000 victories in Canada and the U.S. and Shannon Beauregard is more than halfway there.
Bahen, 45, is a Montreal native who in 2002 scored a historic upset in the nation’s biggest race, guiding 82-1 shot TJ’s Lucky Moon to victory in the Queen’s Plate. He’s still riding and has accumulated more than 1,200 victories since his first one in 1986.
David, born on the island of Montreal and raised in the suburb of Brossard, is a nephew of New Brunswick riding legend Ron Turcotte via his mother, Camilla. Another of his riding uncles, Noel, invited him to Woodbine in 1980 and over the next four years he learned the game working for a number of trainers. He started his career in 1984 and was leading apprentice rider in Ontario in 1985. Though David said in one of his first interviews he didn’t expect to ride more than 10 years, he competed through 2010, persevering through personal, weight and health problems to record more than 1,000 victories.
Born in Montreal, Lapensee began riding in 1967, when thoroughbreds still raced at Blue Bonnets racetrack, and eventually settled in New England. He had more than 2,600 wins and still was riding at 58 when fatally injured in a spill at Suffolk Downs in 2005.
Beauregard, 30, raised in the Montreal suburb of Roxboro, has had a solid career competing at tracks throughout western Canada, after a rough start in which she went winless for almost 50 races. She’s won about 600 races since her first victory in Winnipeg in 2003.and hopes to establish herself eventually in Ontario, though a concussion suffered after a fall in a workout at Northlands Park in August ended her 2011 campaign prematurely.
“From the time I was a kid, watching The Black Stallion (TV series), I wanted to be a jockey,” Beauregard said in an interview. “For most, the dreams they have as kids are not feasible. For me, it ended up coming true. I’ve got my dream job.”
Montpellier, 50, retired in 2009 after a solid career in Ontario that began only at the unusually advanced age of 30.
He’d been working as a photographer for a weekly newspaper in Dorion, Que., when one of his photo assignments brought him to a local farm that was standing a thoroughbred stallion, Le Point de Mire, who’d raced in Ontario.
The breeder noted he had the physique of a jockey and gave him the name of a Fort Erie-based trainer he knew, Rene Crete.
“One weekend, I went down to Fort Erie to check it out. I didn’t even know they raced thoroughbreds in Canada. I loved it from the time I saw it and vowed to be back next year. And I was.”
In 1993, Montpellier won the Sovereign Award as Canadian apprentice jockey of the year for his exploits at Fort Erie. “I was just starting, my parents (Guy and Monique) were there. It’s a night I’ll never forget.”
He successfully made the jump to Woodbine and was a top-10 rider pretty much until he retired in 2009, totaling about 1,300 wins. Among them were several stakes race – 10 in 2001 alone - but never the Queen’s Plate, though he finished second to Woodcarver with 67-1 shot Gandria in 1999 and again with favourite Win City behind Dancethruthedawn in 2001. “Losing with Win City was my biggest disappointment. That one hurt. He was such a good, honest horse. He always brought it in the afternoon, and I loved his style of falling back and then kicking for three-eighths of a mile.”
Montpellier packed it in after separating a shoulder when tossed from a horse behind the gate at Woodbine in 2009. “I’d had a good go, considering I started at age 30.”
He returned to Quebec and now is focusing his competitive instincts on other sports, speed skating, cycling and in-line skating. “I lived for sports my whole life. It’s my essence,” he said. “Being a jockey let me be the professional athlete I always hoped to be, and for me, that was the greatest thing.”
Woodbine Thoroughbreds Take the Show on the Road
For many Woodbine horsemen, it’s time to take their show on the road. After a 165-day Thoroughbred meet that began in early April and ended in early December, it would be understandable for Woodbine’s trainers, jockeys and others to take a well-deserved rest. But that’s not the case.
Take Luis Contreras, for example. Woodbine’s leading jockey in 2011, Contreras, who became just the second rider in the history of the Toronto oval to reach the 200-win plateau, is heading to the Sunshine State, more specifically, Hallandale, Florida.
The hard-working native of Mexico will be getting a ‘leg up’ at Gulfstream Park, where he’ll ride over the winter months before he returns to Toronto in the early spring. “I love the sport and I enjoy the opportunity to ride at different racetracks,” explained Contreras. “The more you ride, the more you can be ready for when the new Woodbine season starts.”
Emma-Jayne Wilson, who enjoyed another stellar campaign at Woodbine, will also ride at Gulfstream. The jockey who won the 2007 Queen’s Plate with Mike Fox has enjoyed great success riding throughout the U.S. during the winter months. Jesse Campbell, who turned heads with a fine first year riding at Canada’s Showplace of Racing, is in New Orleans, competing at Fair Grounds.
The man with 1,700 career wins has already ridden horses for Woodbine-based conditioner, Hall of Fame inductee, Mark Frostad, in Louisiana. Several names familiar to Canadian racing fans, including champion trainer Mark Casse, who set the standard for most wins in one Woodbine meet, will be sending out horses throughout the U.S.
While Casse continues to enjoy unparalleled success in Canada, he’s also had his fair of good fortune south of the border, including several trips to the winner’s circle in Kentucky and Florida.
Reade Baker, Mike Doyle, Brian Lynch, Josie Carroll, the aforementioned Mark Frostad and several other trainers will be looking to heat things up in the U.S. with their respective stable of horses over the winter.
And although the starting gate won’t open on the 2012 Woodbine Thoroughbred meet until April, the action for some of Woodbine’s top talents is already off and running. It’s a safe bet Canadian racing fans will be keeping an eye out for them and their starters, as they look to make their mark south of the 49th parallel.
Follow the whole Woodbine family over the winter through regular check-ins on Facebook and Twitter.