My $50,000 Year at the Races

Andrew Beyer

Now, I rush to start by saying that while a $50,000 year at the races doesn't look so spectacular when some guy in Phoenix just cashed for $1.7 million on the Derby superfecta (on a quick-pick ticket, no less), remember that you need to figure in 1978 dollars, and this was back in the days when the exacta was the hot new thing, unless you happened to be in Mexico, where they had the Pick Six at Caliente. Most horseplayer were still grinding it out with win bets. And as anyone who's tried to make fifty grand betting $100 a race (or even, as Beyer did in his serious bets in this book, a grand) on win bets will tell you, it's a pretty serious achievement.

Andrew Beyer has always been somewhat crass, elitist, and off-putting. These traits don't come out much in his handicapping books, Picking Winners and The Winning Horseplayer, but his editorial columns almost always spark some sort of minor furor among a minority of racing fans. This being a memoir of sorts, you can be sure you're going to get the same attitude here, and you do, in spades. If you don't like Beyer's Washington Post style, you're probably going to want to pass this.

Even though this is a memoir, however, Beyer offers a number of common-sense tips that many horseplayers have probably either never learned or forgotten about; for example, the idea of specializing. Beyer shows how to do it while still betting aggressively, putting your cash down on a number of races that would cause most pros to turn somewhat green, and still make money. This is something you need to know, but you're not going to find it in any respectable handicapping tome.

A definite must for students of the game. I have long through that handicapping books should be not in the gambling section of the bookstore, but in self-help; stick this one in the inspirational section.