Hambletonian dominance: praise for the bigger and stronger win
by Frank Cotolo
Sports journalists and writers of horse-racing literature and pulp and screenplays and race charts always define dramatic horse races with the same competitive dynamics at their finishes. Horses dueling down the stretch in pairs result in razor-thin finales or explosive last-to-first-come-from-behind wins and then by a nose or a whisker; those are the stuff that horse-racing adventures thrive upon.
I never found those scenarios breathtaking. They were obvious and contrived and they sucked the thrills from all true drama; especially in races where I have a wager.
My heart always beats faster — whether a race was a classic stakes or a high-or-low claimer or an allowance or any level of maiden — when the horse I backed controls the field from start-to-finish.
What is even better for me in a wire-to-wire contest is when the horse I back increases its lead en route to the victory. This for me is not a single win; it is multiple wins in the same race. I get a win at the first quarter and at the half and at the three-quarters and at the finish line. It is an experience of great beauty and splendor. And it demands watching the replay before cashing.
In the Hambletonians I watched either live at The Meadowlands or on TV or streaming online at home – I have seen my share of wire-to-wire wins. But I was not involved in betting most of them, and betting was necessary for my ideal winning conditions. That situation developed in the 2011 edition of the storied stakes race.
On Aug. 6 at The Meadowlands, I was the lone harness racing handicapping/wagering/reporter for the Internet’s Advanced Deposit Wagering platform called TwinSpires.com (TS) and I was also on the Hambletonian Society’s reporting team.
TS ran a Players Pool the week leading up to the stakes-ridden Hambletonian Day program. It was a simple gimmick. TS members invested money to buy shares of the total wagers I was responsible for choosing and making during the racing day.
Win, place, show, exacta and trifecta bets were made and recorded from the huge Players Pool bankroll participants created to be used only on any races during the Hambletonian Day program. Players Pool boss Ed DeRosa punched in the bets via a computer connection to Churchill Downs’ TS headquarters to the New Jersey track’s press box.
The traffic for Meadowlands racing at TS was huge because the Players Pool was a popular attraction. (We would be successful on occasion later in the year when TS ran the gimmick for huge exotic-pool carryovers at Mohawk).
It took some fancy keyboard work for Ed and I to get big bets in on time but it was a special thrill to see our financial impact on the tote board as it assembled odds from in-house and online bettors worldwide. We provoked a handsome profit for participating players through the races leading to the main event but the Hambletonian itself would be the pinnacle of the day’s success.
Our win and exotic wagers involved in the Hambletonian field centered around Broad Bahn. These were the largest wagers the Players Pool presented for the whole card and the four-digit win wager the single highest. The profit possibilities were terrific considering Broad Bahn was not the favorite. Two others in the field shared the top three embraced by the betting population.
Manofmanymissions and Whiskey Tax took the most money; Broad Bahn offered 4-1. Chapter Seven (who would become the most prolific sire of the powerful soph-colts in the 2011 final) was also in the field. Handicappers provided many scenarios to support wagers on the quartet but my fervent theory made Broad Bahn a major overlay; he would go to the front and not give up the lead.
An abbreviated review of the race: Broad Bahn (George Brennan) went wire-to-wire without a serious challenge to win the $1.5 million Hambletonian in 1:53 by 3½ lengths.
My son Ray and I stood on the apron at the finish line and watched Broad Bahn win for us at the first, second and third quarters and jumped in exaltation as he completed the victory for us and every companion bettor in the Players Pool.
The leading-all-the-way win was not the popular strategy that day.
“Every horse that took the front [early] got beat today,” said trainer Ole Bach. “[Broad Bahn is] like a big steam engine.”
I recall watching the Belmont Stakes before I was involved in pari-mutuel betting and horse race reporting; it was the day Secretariat devastated rivals to win the Triple Crown by an historic 31 lengths. When I began betting on harness races, I embraced every chance to recapture the multiple senses of cheerful joy when a wager won a bigger and stronger win by taking control from start-to-finish.
