Ladies' Night at the Races
By Bob Roberts
It’s a Sunday night in Greater Cleveland. Most people have a little more pep in their step, as earlier in the day the clocks were turned back from Daylight Saving Time, giving everyone an extra hour of sleep if they chose to accept it.
The World Series ended last night, and while there is joy in Los Angeles, our Canadian friends in harness racing are in mourning tonight at Woodbine Mohawk. Their beloved Blue Jays not only lost baseball’s championship, but they did so on their home field.
So, what to do back in Ohio? Well, the woeful Cleveland Browns had a bye week to lick their 2-6 wounds, and, unless you had a wager, who really cares about the Sunday night matchup between Seattle and Washington that would result in a 38-14 laugher for the Seahawks?
For three middle-age working women with disposable income burning a hole in their purses, their first-ever visit to Northfield Park was penciled in on their calendars. Oh, they’ve been to the casino that shares the parking lot with the harness track, but mindlessly tapping lighted buttons on a video lottery terminal while sipping something strong mixed with cranberry juice doesn’t give them much of an adrenaline rush. Plus, they got a taste of harness racing earlier in the year at the Cuyahoga County Fair and wanted a full-course evening of it.
Thus, Dawn, Heather, and Jamie (no last names, please) recruited an ink-stained veteran of many days and nights of writing and wagering on pacers and trotters to escort them to Northfield Park. These women, and there are thousands of them out there, could help bolster the future of harness racing if the industry holds their hands, educates them, and shows them a good time. Yes, it’s pari-mutuel wagering, but it’s also entertainment, a fact too often lost on the sport’s policymakers.
The raceway rookies, programs in hand, arrived at Northfield a half-hour prior to the first race to get a lesson on how to read the program and to digest all the different wagering choices that awaited them. To say they were overwhelmed is an understatement. This is an area where track management and horsemen groups should consider forming a partnership to offer “how-to” and handicapping seminars at Ohio tracks and fairgrounds to teach beginners and to enhance the experience of regulars.
While the newbies struggled with the ABCs of past performances and the smorgasbord of bets, it surprisingly didn’t take them long to learn how to navigate the self-betting machines.
“OK, I’m going to vote on No. 3,” said Heather.
“Eh, Heather, it’s not vote, it’s bet on No. 3.”
Jamie came armed with a shopping list of horses she was going to bet on, courtesy of her grandson.
“Just like I did at the fair, I showed him the names of all the horses racing tonight,” she said. “I’m going to bet on all of them. Well, maybe some of them. There are too many games to bet all of them.”
“Games? No, Jamie, it’s races.”
Dawn was ready take the rubber band off her bankroll and fire away, but first a question.
“What are the stats on No. 6?” she asked.
“Stats? Do you mean the odds?”
She got it and quickly graduated to understanding hyphens, like 4-5, 9-5, 5-2, and 9-2.
But first, a round of drinks and a sampling of finger foods. One of the win, place, and show novices headed for the bar, another to the concession stand. It’s too bad they didn’t get curious about Northfield 10 or 20 years ago. A tour of the building showed them what they missed out on — a huge glass-enclosed clubhouse that in the good old days, getting a table on the weekends was a tall order. Lots of sellouts.
Is it too late for terraced dining at the finish line? Perhaps on weeknights, but could horsemen and management get together to sponsor weekend events that attract people to eat, drink, and merrily enjoy racing?
Watching racing on a television screen is how most people view the sport, but experiencing the action on the grandstand apron is the way to go, and the trio of beginners abandoned the warm indoor seats to watch (and listen) to a race live and in color. They loved it and got a bonus when the connections of a winner invited them to accompany the first-place finisher in the winner’s circle.
“When can we get a copy of the photo?” they all asked. We’re working on it.
Heather was so taken by the experience she wondered how she could enjoy racing when unable to attend the races. She was told that many people open online accounts on their phones from which they can watch and wager any and all races.
She immediately signed up with Xpressbet, then texted her husband.
“Honey, I’m a player now,” she said.
You could have made an over-under bet as to how many races Dawn, Heather, and Jamie would stay for, but you probably would have lost. They hung in long enough to gamble on 11 of Northfield’s 15 races.
It wasn’t a visit without challenges. Dawn thought she was ripping up a losing ticket only to realize she was shredding a ducat on a race that was yet to be run. Luckily for the mutuel clerks working at Northfield that night, the horse lost. Otherwise, they would have been handed a ticket taped back together that looked more like a jigsaw puzzle.
After cashing a few tickets and discarding many others, the three Cinderellas were ready to call it a night, beating the midnight deadline. But they weren’t back in the car five minutes before one of them had a serious racing question.
“When are we coming back?”
Don’t be strangers. Study up, girls. Northfield races year-round.