What is your biggest score gambling?

[QUOTE=RoadToad;418604]I met my Better Half online, playing backgammon on a site known as Netgammon. We chatted online for a while, then exchanged phone numbers and started running up astronomical phone bills. After a couple months of that, we decided to meet up, so we booked separate rooms at the Flamingo in Reno. Long story short, we both went home with a couple grand more than we got there with, PLUS a few months later she moved out here to Louisville, and the seven years we've lived together since have been the happiest of my life! What more of a score could anybody ask for?

My biggest score at the track was in 1984 on a mare I used to rub for Shug, named Pure Profit. You've probably never heard of her, but I'm sure some of you remember her daughters Inside Information and Educated Risk. Pure Profit was running in an allowance race where I really liked her chances, and a friend of mine also had a filly in the race (whose name I don't remember), and he really liked his filly, because he said they'd recently corrected some bad habits she had. So I bet $20 to win on my mare at 5-2, and a $20 exacta box with the two of them, and they ran one-two with Pure Profit on top. The exacta paid $72 and change, and I ended up taking home $824. I made plenty of bets in my 10 years on the track, and that was the biggest ticket I ever cashed, which is why I really don't bet that much any more. Took a whle, but I finally realized that I'm really not that good at it.[/QUOTE]

Inside Information was an OUTSTANDING Mare I believe owned by Ogden Phipps. Not in my top 10 of all time but she would be in the top 20 on my list. I remember when she won the Ashland at Keeneland in 1994 I think and then she won the Breeders Cup Distaff, the Classic for the Fillies and Mares, the next year. Shug is a great trainer as well and from what I know a better person. No matter how good a horse he sent to the track, he always seemed humble and genuine. Not like some of today's trainers, Baffert and Pletcher in particular, that come off as cocky and arrogant. Give one of the cocky trainers of today a horse like Personal Ensign, Lure, Easy Goer, Inside Information or another GREAT horse that Shug trained back in the day and their head would swell even more. Shug always came off as a class act. One thing for sure Owner Phipps / Trainer Shug combo sure did win a lot of races together and Shug would not have had the career that he did if not for some of the horses that Phipps gave to him to train. I remember when Shug was inducted into the Hall of Fame and even gave a lot of credit to Phipps.

A minor distinction, since it's all one stable and they wore the same colors, but it was actually "Dinny," aka Ogden Mills Phipps, Ogden Phipps' son, who owned and raced Pure Profit and her offspring, and he is also a really nice, down-to-earth man, considering the immense wealth and privilege he was born into. So many rich racehorse owners act all high-society, and if any of "the help" ever address them, it'd better be Mr. This or Mrs. That. Yet this guy, born into the highest of high society (his dad Ogden Phipps was buddies with Carnegie and Rockefeller and Pulitzer), Chairman of the Jockey Club, shows up at the barn every day wearing jeans, no socks, and loafers, and doesn't want anybody to call him anything but Dinny, PLUS he knows every groom, hotwalker, and exercise rider by name. A really nice rich man, which is too often an oxymoron.

I guess it's fair to say that Shug wouldn't have had the career he's had without getting the private trainer job for the Phippses, but I'd also say they wouldn't have had near the success they've had without him. I was with him when he got the job, and he'd already had one champion with Loblolly Stables, a horse called Vanlandingham, the only horse from that stable he kept when he took over for the Phippses. I was rubbing a horse named Mustin Lake at the time, and he'd won the Kentucky Jockey Club on Thanksgiving Day 1985, and I had dreams of running him in next year's Derby. But as luck would have it, a few days later we found out Shug was taking over the Phipps' horses, and I had to take the colt over to Rusty Arnold's barn, and turn him over to my buddy, Junior. I was one dejected racetracker that day.

I hit the '99 Derby for $13K+ with a Charismatic/Menifee Exacta. It sure was funny when the tellers hands started shaking just holding the tickets.

Donger, that is interesting. How much/what type exacta did you bet to get over $13,000.00 on a $727.80 return for a $2.00 Exacta? Did you handicap that or just play some numbers?

I was with a group at Churchill one time when a friend and his wife who were celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary. the lady did a $25 Exacta on 2 and 5 on all ten races. I don't remember now how many hit but several did and she got over $1,000.00.

Grumpy

I was living in Colorado at the time and had been coming back for the Derby every year. On each trip, I took money from co-workers to bet as they wished, or, as was usually the case, let me bet it for them. That year I had about 10 people give me money, anywhere from $2 -$50, about 20 bucks each. I placed the bets all over the board in small amounts. I am not a great handicapper, if you can even call me that. I know how to read the form to some extent, but, I am certainly no expert. I had bet Baffert horses for the previous two years and had won, so I really considered his horses again, except...that week Lucas had been elected to the hall of fame so I decided to take a closer look at his horses. Those were the best two that I could see and I liked them both so I put half the money I had allocated for exactas on that exacta and bet some more probable exactas and split the rest in small amounts over the rest of the board just to make sure EVERYONE won at least a little bit. Give me $20 - here is your $3 for one of the show bets you won and here is a losing ticket you can have as a souvenir.

Anyway, the race ran and I knew I had won something from my Charismatic bets, so I headed to the windows early to beat the crowd. I knew that Charismatic had won but had no idea who had won the photo finish for second. After standing in line for about ten minutes, I kept hearing cheers so I figured they had a second place horse (I could not see a tv from where I was at). A lady with a big smile came walking down the "aisle" and I asked who had come in second, she had no idea, she had bet on Charismatic. This happened a couple more times until a man came strutting down the aisle and I asked him. He said Menifee and my mind started doing flips. What were his final odds, what were Charismatics final odds, how much was a $2 exacta...

Well, I finally got to the window and started handing her small tickets, one by one and she would cash them out. Finally, I got to my final two tickets and, with a big grin, I handed her one and she looked for a long time at the ticket, covered the money register thing that shows how much you won with a program and ran the ticket through the Tote machine and she got kinda quiet and looked up at me with a big smile. I asked her why the smile and she said, you have have won so much you have to pay taxes. She said that she would have to call a supervisor to get the tax papers for me. I was elated, but I still did not know how much I had won. With her getting tax papers, I knew I would have to pay taxes on the next ticket too, same horses, larger bet, so I handed her the last ticket and her jaw dropped. She told me she had been a bet handler for 7 years and that I now had the largest pay out she had ever given and her hands started to shake, she was almost having as much fun as I was.

At that time, anything over $600 (I think) and you paid taxes on the spot, so I knew I had won 2-3K and I was having a great time just standing in line listening to people moan and complain about how long it was taking for all the lines to make any progress, many people were filling out tax forms and the lines were not moving. Finally, the boss gets there and starts processing my paperwork and the cashier starts counting out $100 bills. She gets to $1.5k and runs out of money, so the boss goes back and gets more money. She counts out $5k more and runs out of money again, yes, I bankrupted my cashier twice. I had given her the second ticket after she had called for the tax papers so the boss did not know how much to bring so he told her that he would be bringing another 5 k. She had counted out 1.5K and 5K more would not cover it I finally yeilded to temptation and removed the program to see how much I had won, I do not remember the exact amount, my mind was spinning, but with all the smaller bets that I had won wrapped up in the total, it turned out to be about 13.5k before taxes. She put the money in an envelope for me and then rolled the envelope in my program.

Anyway, after all was said and done, after I had paid my taxes, tipped my ticket lady and made a rather large donation to the Salvation Army bell ringer at the exit of Churchill Downs, I walked out of that place with 86 $100 bills in that envelope. My largest better recevied a little over $2100 (he actualy cried when I handed him a check and he figured out it was real) and my smallest better get about $150. Needless to say, I was a VERY popular guy at work from that day forward.

I had a chart for what I bet on which horse for which person, but I seem to have misplaced it somewhere (along with the tax forms) so I cannot tell you the exact bets or $ amounts placed, but I can tell you that seeing that ladies hands start to shake is something I will never forget.