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A historical look at some fearless bettors of the past
As the end of the century approaches, thoroughbred racing faces a variety of problems. There are too many tracks and too many racing dates.
Evidence of widespread dishonesty undermines fans' confidence. A rising tide of anti-gambling sentiment threatens the sport.
This might be a fair description of horse racing today, in the era of year-round racing, clenbuterol abuse and the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act. But this was the state of horse racing at the turn of the last century, as portrayed in "High Rollers: A History of Gambling in America," a two-hour documentary that recently aired on the History Channel.
ATTITUDES TOWARD GAMBLING EBB AND FLOW
"High Rollers" shows how American attitudes toward gambling have ebbed and flowed since colonial times; periods of gambling mania are often followed by reform movements and anti-gambling zealotry. Gambling became widespread after the Civil War and by the 1890s, horse racing was the nation's favorite game. In 1897, a total of 314 tracks conducted race meetings. Although year-round racing is popularly thought to be a modern invention, a track in East St. Louis, Ill., operated every day in 1893, and tracks in New Jersey raced during blinding snowstorms.
UNREGULATED BETTING
While the sport grew, it was largely unregulated, and betting was a rough-and-tumble battle of wits and chicanery between gamblers and bookmakers. Some of the most astute bettors operated racing stables, which gave them access to inside information as well as the ability to manipulate their horses. As a countermeasure, bookmakers often owned horses secretly and manipulated them, too. Public indignation over such corruption would eventually bring about a reform movement that shut down most of the nation's tracks and lead to the adoption of the parimutuel wagering system.
While the parimutuel system limits the amount that a gambler can rationally bet, higher rollers in the 1890s could bet as much as a bookmaker was willing to accept. And nobody was willing to bet more than John W. "Bet-A-Million" Gates.
THE RISE AND FORTUNE OF "BET-A-MILLION" GATES
Gates started his professional life as a traveling barbed-wire salesman in Texas, wound up cornering the nation's barbed-wire business, formed a trust called Illinois Steel and became J.P. Morgan's arch rival at the upper echelon of financial wheeling and dealing. Gates loved the risks of business, and loved taking risks, period; he would gamble on anything.
He and a friend would watch raindrops trickling down a window pane and bet $1,000 on which would get to the bottom first. Sitting in a restaurant, he and a companion would place a cube of sugar before them and bet whether a fly would land on one or the other. (The stakes were $1,000 per fly.) The size of his racetrack and casino wagers was legendary. Once after he lost $375,000 at Saratoga Race Course, he then went to the Canfield Casino after dinner and won $300,000, cutting his loss for the day to a mere $75,000.
August Belmont, chairman of the Jockey Club, told Gates he feared that his gambling would stir up the anti-gambling activists and asked him, "Why don't you limit your bets to $10,000?" Gates refused. "I think no man should bet unless he's sure he's right," he said. "And when he's sure he's right he should be willing to bet every dollar he owns."
Gates probably lost more bets than he won during the course of his life. But a gambler who made a fortune playing the horses was George Smith, who started life as a cork-cutter in Pittsburgh and achieved fame as a bettor under the name Pittsburgh Phil. He watched races and judged horses' appearance astutely; he analyzed time, weight and class; he shrewdly assessed the larceny in the game. His memoirs (which are kept in print by the Gamblers' Book Club in Las Vegas) reveal that he was a man far ahead of his time.
FEARLESS "PITTSBURGH PHIL"
Pittsburgh Phil was cool, unemotional and fearless. In a match race between two famous horses, Domino and Henry of Navarre, Pittsburgh Phil liked Domino, and marched from bookmaker to bookmaker betting tens of thousands on his choice, while another gambler, Riley Grannon, was behind him betting Henry of Navarre. Phil finally turned to his rival and said, "Riley, let's quit piking," and bet him $100,000 on the match. Phil calmly ate a nickel package of figs as he watched the horses battle head-and-head to the wire - and finish in a dead heat.
Pittsburgh Phil maintained his coolness and good judgment to the end. At the age of 43, he was on his deathbed in a tuberculosis sanitarium, and he asked his doctor, "How long will I live?" When the doctor told him 24 hours, Pittsburgh Phil bet $10,000 that he would last longer. Each wrote out a check for $10,000, and the great gambler died, 24 1/2 hours later, clutching the checks in his hand.
He died in 1905 - just before the world that he knew was about to disappear. The anti-gambling movement gained force and racing was banned in many states, including New York and California. By 1908 there were only 25 racetracks left in the United States, and a golden era had ended.
HISTORICAL NOTE
The First Kentucky Derby Was Run on May 17, 1875
The Derby was sponsored by the Louisville Jockey Club and Driving Association which owned the track now known as Churchill Downs. Colonel M. Lewis Clark founded the Association after he had visited Europe to study their farms and racing regulations.
Clark was particularly impressed by the English system. He called the Kentucky race "Derby," after the Epsom Derby which was first run in 1780 under the sponsorship of the Earl of Derby.
(It is noteworthy that Diomed, who was sent to America and so strongly influenced the American Thoroughbred, won the first Epsom Derby.)
In this first Kentucky Derby, Aristides crossed the finish line ahead of 14 challengers to win $2,850. (In 1975, Cannonade captured the centennial Derby over a field of 23 starters to win no less than $274,000.)
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