Race Track Diary, Entry Number One

Introduction

This blog and some following blogs are sections from an informal diary of “visits to the race-track” at a particular time and place, by a person who has followed the races with varying levels of participation over a long period. These relate primarily to some visits to the track and/or off-track betting venues in the 2025 period and onward. They contain observations about the activity, both specific and general. Although these remarks are personal, they also reflect general cultural and historical trends, as they have impacted horse-racing, wagering and culture in general.

The setting is Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (population of about one million). However, I imagine that the observations would apply to many places in the world, as they are a reflection of how changing trends in technology, globalization and culture in general have affected this ancient and honourable activity of horse-racing.

For now, I will use what I call “polished point-form” for the narrative.

1 – Fitzgerald’s Pub (Feb 20, 2025)

• This off-track betting site is located on a secondary road in the south-side of Edmonton, which is not generally a very busy road. There is a farmer’s market about a mile down this road, as well as a nice little driving range (golf) a little ways farther. In addition, there is a habitat for humanity recycling place nearby (handy for projects). These are all places that I visit quite regularly.

• Fitzy’s is sort of a neighbourhood bar, though it is in an industrial area of the city. I think that if one was to become a regular, one would probably get to know some people, have a few laughs, that sort of thing. The crowd generally seems pretty friendly.

• The place is basically a pub/restaurant, with the off-track horse-race betting area representing a smallish proportion of it (maybe about one-quarter). There was often some background music, as would be expected in a pub, but it didn’t seem to have constant blaring music (or at least it was not too loud).

• As might be expected, there were a number of large wall-size TV screens – some showed sports, with about 8 or 10 showing racetracks. Those tended to be some of the bigger tracks in the U.S., as well as Woodbine in Toronto.

• There were some dart boards, though nobody was playing at the time we visited. The wall featured pictures of hockey players (mostly Edmonton Oilers, for example Mike Comrie) and jerseys. That said, there was also a rather old Geordie Howe photo. He could have visited during his WHA or late NHL days (later 1970s to 1980), I suppose.

• Perhaps some of the Oiler players were regulars in the past? Or perhaps the owner got to know a few NHL players in some other way? Owning race horses can be a good in, as far as meeting athletes is concerned, or so I have heard. Golf courses are also good.

• My brother Craig pointed out a strange machine on one wall. It turned out to be one of those blood-alcohol testers. I wonder how well those readings would stand up in court.

• Since it was a Thursday, it was not very busy at the time of day that we visited. I had a lunch of fish and chips, which were pretty good. The beers tended to be the usual corporate beers, no craft beers as far as I cold tell. So, I had a Keith’s, which I find to be better than most corporate beers.

• The waitress was quite pleasant. I gave her a somewhat generous tip; she seemed surprised and appreciative of that. When we left, she was outside smoking a cigarette. She waved and said hi. A decent tip can have that effect.

• There were only a few scattered few horse players, mostly older in age, while we were there. They varied by ethnic background and were almost entirely male.

• There was a group of older boisterous patrons (male and female) in the tavern part of the pub. It must have been an after work crowd, by the sounds of it. But it was good; they were having fun without being annoying.

• As for the horses, I won a few bets, and came away from the day in the black, I think. To be honest, I wasn’t keeping super-diligent records. But I did have at least one fair-size win, which would have overcome any losses on other races.

• I hasten to add that I did no real handicapping; it wasn’t much more scientific than throwing darts. I did look to link a relatively sure thing with a longer shot that had showed decent speed in the past. Those are often overlooked by the casual bettor, so you can get a good price.

• It made me wonder if careful handicapping (with evidence-based statistical analysis) might once again be a workable program. In the 1990s, I developed a computerized statistical system which worked fairly well for about three years. Then it conked out (quit working), coincidental with the “dumb money” shifting over to VLTs and similar types of easy gambling.

• My hypothesis was that when the non-handicapping bettors left, the easy money left with them. At that point there was a much reduced information advantage to sophisticated handicapping. Thus, there were far fewer overlooked horses (i.e. their odds of winning were better than the odds that they went off at).

• So, is the something like that happening with multi-track horse-racing, but in reverse? In other words, is the multiplicity of race-track opportunities resulting in more cursory handicapping? Is the “dumb money” coming back? Also, is there some advantage to sharing bettor pools across many venues?

• Anyway, those were a few things to ponder, as we concluded our visit to Fitzgerald’s on a winter’s day.

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Since I am running a book publishing blog, here is a plug for a horse-racing oriented short story that I wrote.

A Dark Horse

In “A Dark Horse”, a gambler’s desire to hit a big win seems to lead him to make a Faustian bargain with a supernatural evil.  Or is it all just a string of unnaturally good luck?

The story is just $0.99 U.S. (equivalent in other currencies) and about 8000 words. It is also available on Kindle Unlimited and is occasionally on free promotion.

U.S.: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M9BS3Y5

U.K.: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01M9BS3Y5

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Brazil: https://www.amazon.com.br/dp/B01M9BS3Y5

Canada: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B01MDMY2BR

Australia: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B01M9BS3Y5

Here’s an interesting review from Goodreads

(BTW, the writer has never met the reviewer and was not even aware of the review until very recently – You can look up the review on Goodreads, if you like)

A Dark Horse

Every gambler is bound to run out of luck eventually, right?

By far my favourite type of horror is psychological horror. I was quite pleased with how Mr. Olausen frightened his audience without spilling a single drop of blood or so much as hinting at anything gory. He knew exactly what hints to drop for us that made us deliciously dread the next scene simply by throwing out hints about who or what the dark horse might actually represent. This is the kind of stuff I love getting scared by, especially as Halloween approaches.

It would have been helpful to have more character development in this short story. While I certainly wouldn’t expect to see as much time spent on this as I would for a full-length novel, I did have trouble connecting to the main characters due to how little I knew about them and how much their personalities seemed to remain the same no matter what happened to them. If not for this issue, I would have felt comfortable choosing a much higher rating as the plot itself was well done.

I must admit to not knowing much about gambling at all, so I appreciated the brief explanations the narrator shared about how placing bets works and why some people have so much trouble walking away from a bet. While I will leave it up to experts on these topics to say how accurate everything was, I did enjoy learning more about the main character’s addiction and what he hoped to gain from betting on just one more game or race. It gave me a stronger sense of empathy for folks in his position.

A Dark Horse – A Gothic Tale was a deliciously chilling story for the Halloween season and beyond.