The owners of this Mexican racetrack were not being generous or stupid with the odds they offered. Just like the Las Vegas casinos, in futures betting, the house kept one huge advantage. If the horse did not run in the race, they kept all the money bet on that horse, with no refunds.
For the Kentucky Derby, the biggest race of the year, the bookmakers would post advance odds on over 300 horses to win the race. Horses would be listed that would have no chance to be in the race, yet alone win. Even to be invited into a race like the Kentucky Derby, the horse has to keep winning stakes races to be entered in the big race.
Miami and Dino had seen horses listed on the Mexican futures betting odds list that were already dead from illness or injury. Literally dead. In fairness to the Mexican track, extremely generous odds were offered.
The taxi dropped them off at the racetrack entrance at 1:30 p.m., but it was more like they had gone 60 years back in time. This racetrack had once been one of the grandest in the world but wasn’t looking so impressive anymore. It had opened in 1929 at a staggering cost of $2,500,000 ($36,000,000 in 1988 valuation), just in time for the end of the Roaring Twenties and the Wall Street crash of 1929. The once elegant racetrack had gone bust many times since it opened, like in 1935, when the Mexican government declared all gambling illegal for a short time. The track always managed to recover. For decades, the track had been an opulent place for a mostly American clientele to drink, party, and gamble, with an excellent hotel, spa, and a casino.
The Agua Caliente track was Las Vegas before Las Vegas legalized casino gambling in 1931.
Now in 1988, it was out of place again with its huge fountains, soaring staircases, and grand archways, leading to cigar and cigarette smoke filled rooms, lined with gamblers who were watching dozens of television monitors beaming in races from US racetracks.
The local Agua Caliente Sunday live races were about to start. Miami located a table near the betting windows after he’d purchased a Mexican version of the Daily Racing Form and a cold beer. He could smell tacos and homemade tortillas at a vendor’s stand. Young Mexican guards with old carbine rifles hanging from their necks from thick, brown leather straps were in each room. Guns and guards were everywhere.
Miami looked at Dino who was sitting across the table and said, “I don’t know if we should be more afraid of the guards or the customers robbing us.”
Over the last 15 years, Dino and Miami had spent most of their days off at racetracks from California to Florida. The private turf clubs at Hollywood Park and Santa Anita, which required a coat and tie for admittance, were their usual hangouts. Those posh, high society Los Angeles clubs with a maître ‘d and reservations required to get a table were nothing like this betting joint.
Miami looked to his left to see a table of horse gamblers dressed in cheap, colorful shirts that might have fit their fat bodies 30 years earlier, but now made them look like ugly American tourists. Two of them had colorful red and yellow shorts on, with black dress socks and black scuffed up dress shoes. The horse gamblers at the tables surrounding him were getting louder as the cocktail waitress brought them more and more trays of huge green margaritas covered with salt around the glass edges. They seemed more interested in getting drunk and partying than seriously betting the horses.
Four women were sitting at two tables in the back of the race book; all were flirting with the margarita-drinking men who surrounded them. The women were aged 35 to 45 and were not unattractive from a distance, but seen from up close, they had on way too much heavy make-up for a Sunday. They didn’t look like they’d just come from church in their low cut, colorful, short dresses, and three-inch high heels.
“Who do you like in the first race, gringo?” Miami asked Dino.
Dino always spoke fast…very fast. “I couldn’t care less about a cheap group of broken-down Mexican horses in a $1,800 claiming race.”
Miami watched Dino keep his focus, thinking about the future running of the Kentucky Derby. Dino was staring, transfixed, at the betting windows.
It takes a special kind of gambler not to get distracted by the action, noise, and excitement of all the betting opportunities around him. Las Vegas is full of stories of guys dropping $2,000 at the blackjack table because they were just trying to walk over to the $7.95 buffet table.
Dino pushed his chair back, walked up to a betting window, and asked the Mexican ticket seller to confirm the exact current future book odds for the Kentucky Derby, the Super Bowl, and the NBA World Championship. He was at the window for nearly 10 minutes asking about the odds on certain teams and several horses, and a long line of anxious horse bettors was growing angry behind him, getting more and more pissed as
