Race Track Diary, Entry Number
Thirty-Eight
38 – Billy Budd’s (July 13, 2026)
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 plus). 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.
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38 – Billy Budd’s (July 13, 2026)
This visit was on a Monday, as rainfall on Saturday had created difficult driving conditions. Monday tends to be a very slow day for many activities and it was the same for horse-races on this day. That meant the horse-racing section was nearly empty, as was the pub area.
Monday is also a day where the purses are rather low and a lot of the races are confined to younger horses, 2-year-olds and 3-year-olds. Thus, the horses did not have very long track records, so I assumed that a system that relied on past performance data was likely to be disadvantaged.
I had come up with a new predictive scoring method, that ranked horses based on past win percentage and past return on investment. This was an alternative to my current system, which used data on generally good betting situations, picking out horses in each race that fit the relevant criteria. It had done reasonably well, but I thought a more fine-grained method might identify even more possibilities. Of course, that creates the possibility of too many choices and subsequent indecision. In the stats game we call that “paralysis by analysis”.
Here is an example of the general idea (picked at random and is actually from July 11). The morning line for each horse is along the x-axis and the predicted win likelihood is along the y-axis. The number beside each square marker is the horse’s number in the program. In this example, my prediction and the morning line are in agreement that the #5 horse should win, though the morning line odds for the #7 is tied with the #5. My system has the #7 coming in second. Both the morning line and my system predict that the #1 horse will show.
For this race my picks and the morning line are in rather close agreement. For the stats people out there the R-square is 0.9, which is very high for such a model. Needless to say, that doesn’t happen all the time (or even very much of the time).
In the actual race (race 4, July 11, 2026), the finish was 6,4,1, while the model predicted 5,7,1 and the racetrack touts’ morning line was also 5,7,1 (or 7,5,1 due to the tie). So, we both predicted the show horse. That’s awesome, ha ha! Ok, the system needs work.
Would would happen today? Would the new system work better? Or was the old system good enough? There was nothing to do, but test these theories.
I should note that the systems were designed for the harness races, so I will focus on them. The ideas should translate to the thoroughbreds, more or less. But Monday is a rather quiet day for thoroughbreds and getting the necessary information to analyze them is more difficult than for the bucket-pullers.
So, here are the results for Woodbine/Mohawk harness races:
In Race #1, I bet #6 to win, based on my Win Pct technique. Unfortunately, it came in second, paying over $7 to place, which is a pretty good price for a place ticket. The #4 horse won with a nice stretch run, paying $66 to win. As it happened, my ROI system picked it to win, but the odds scared me off. Too bad. It was a good lesson, though. A system that focuses on ROI, and thus will pick fewer winners, but those it does pick correctly will pay more, takes a lot of patience and dare I say it, courage. It turned out to be the only winner that the ROI system picked that day, but a $66 winner is worth waiting for.
In Race #2 I stepped down to a show bet on the #3 horse, which ranked first in one system and had nice odds. It actually came in second, and paid $4.10 for show (its win odds were 11 to 1). So, that was ok.
In Race #3, I bet the #4 horse to show. The systems didn’t pick it to be in the money, but they did show it to be competitive and it went off at 22 to 1. However it lost, coming in 6th.
In Race #4, both systems rated the #7 horse highly, so I put show money on it, as it was going off at 7 to 1. It led throughout most of the race, but was soundly beaten in the stretch.
In Race #5, I bet another long odds horse (8 to 1), the #9, to show. It looked to be competitive and it was, but not competitive enough, coming in fourth.
In Race #6, the #7 horse was highly rated by both systems, and went off at very good odds of 6 to 1. So I bet it, again to show. However, it didn’t show any interest during the race, starting off in 8th place and ending up in 6th.
The same was true of Race 7, where my #6 horse did nothing, coming in dead last.
In Race 8, I bet on a second-favourite, the #6. It started out well, but seemed to get boxed and came in sixth, so that was all she wrote.
In Race 9, I took the #8 horse. It had high ratings in both systems and went off at good odds of 9 to 1. But this one also finished out-of-the-money.
Finally, in Race 10, I took the #9 to show at 27 to 1 odds. It did nothing.
So, there you go, kind of a wipe-out day, losing 9 of 10 bets, though the one successful bet paid pretty well. These systems weren’t just doing it today.
I suppose that my conclusion is that they had me chasing long-shots and that didn’t pay off, at least on this day. Had I stuck with the highly-ranked horses that the system picked based on win pct, I would have won 6 out of 10 place bets. However, this kind of reasoning can be quite deceptive. Using a post-hoc analysis (i.e. after the fact reasoning) will usually look good, since you notice the successes and ignore the failures.
Another issue is that using systems that include a lot of variables can reduce the strength of the signal you need to make good bets, via a lot of random non-useful information being present.
Was it a problem with the system(s), or a problem with using it on that particular day? The system was trained on Saturday cards, which tend to have higher-priced races and more mature horses than Mondays. Maybe it just didn’t generalize to Monday cards? Or perhaps it was just one of those test runs of a stochastic system that randomly underperformed during that particular trial.
Having said all that, I haven’t really had the time to write the programming necessary to run some long-term tests, so I haven’t given up on the new systems, just put them on the shelf until later.
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On a completely different subject, I missed the presence of other
horse-players. A good part of the enjoyment of the races is
people-watching and idle chit-chat. A Monday race-day misses out
on that, compared to Saturday. Damon Runyon would have had a lot
less to write about, had his horse-playing been confined to these
quiet days (if you like horses, you must read Damon Runyon’s
stuff, easy to get on Amazon).This visit was on a Monday, as
rainfall on Saturday had created difficult driving conditions.
Monday tends to be a very slow day for many activities and it was
the same for horse-races on this day. That meant the horse-racing
section was nearly empty, as was the pub area.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And here are some books you might like:
Hiking the Wild North Shore of Lake
Superior
The north shore of Lake Superior is wild and beautiful. It is also quite sparsely populated, so a hiking trip (or other adventure) will truly give you chance to get away from it all, and back to nature in its full glory.
Lake Superior is big – it is the largest of the North American Great Lakes, and one of the largest freshwater lakes in the world. One could spend years exploring the area, and still have barely touched the possibilities.
This account focuses on a multi-day backpacking trip in Pukaskwa National Park, some light canoeing in White Lake Provincial Park, and some day-hiking in the Thunder Bay area.
What follows is a journal of some of the highlights of a trip to Northern Ontario in the summer of 1998. That gives the trip a bit of a historical flavor, but things don’t change very quickly in the wild country of the true north, so it will also give the reader a good idea of what to expect during their own exploration of the north shore.
You can purchase it for 99 cents U.S., equivalent price in other currencies. Alternatively, keep your eyes open for a free promotions, which occur periodically. Or, get it with Kindle Unlimited.
U.S.: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F9TV4C8
U.K.:
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Germany:
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Brazil:
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Japan:
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Australia:
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India:
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And here’s an account of some road trips in south-western Alberta:
A Selection of Back-Road Trips Around
Southwest Alberta
There are two main aspects to a road trip: the journey and the destination. Sometimes the trip is all about the journey, sometimes it’s all about the destination. Usually it is a little of both.
This collection of back-roads journeys feature a little bit of both of these aspects. Some accounts are more about the ‘journey’, such as a road trip on scenic Highway 22. Others are more about the ‘destination’, such as the show-jumping at Spruce Meadows. I hope you will enjoy reading some of these accounts and maybe give them a spin for yourself.
Southwest 1 – A Road Trip on Scenic Highway 22
Southwest 2 – The Equestrian Competitions at Spruce Meadows (Calgary)
Southwest 3 – The Bar U Ranch, south of Long View
Southwest 4 – Kananaskis Country
Southwest 5 – Blackfoot Crossing
Southwest 6 – Back-roads, from the Prairies to the Foothills: Brazeau Dam Trip
Southwest 7 – A Back-roads Trip to Hinton and the Forestry Trunk Roads
The reader may wonder “what about the Ice-fields Parkway?” or “where is a visit to Banff?” I would answer, that these famous destinations are covered very nicely by other books. This account is meant to focus on some less travelled areas, thus the “back-roads” descriptor.
I should note that the other three quadrants of Alberta also have a lot of interesting back-roads journeys, but those are material for some other books which will be published in due time.
Amazon U.S.: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCMJP47G
Amazon U.K: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DCMJP47G
Amazon CA: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0DCMJP47G
Amazon Germany: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0DCMJP47G
Amazon France: https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B0DCMJP47G
Amazon Spain: https://www.amazon.es/dp/B0DCMJP47G
Amazon Italy: https://www.amazon.it/dp/B0DCMJP47G
Amazon Netherlands: https://www.amazon.nl/dp/B0DCMJP47G
Amazon Brazil: https://www.amazon.com.br/dp/B0DCMJP47G
Amazon Mexico: https://www.amazon.com.mx/dp/B0DCMJP47G
Amazon Japan: https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B0DCMJP47G
Amazon India: https://www.amazon.in/dp/B0DCMJP47G
Amazon Australia: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0DCMJP47G
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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
Germany: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B01M9BS3Y5
France: https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B01M9BS3Y5
Italy: https://www.amazon.it/dp/B01M9BS3Y5
Netherlands: https://www.amazon.nl/dp/B01M9BS3Y5
Spain: https://www.amazon.es/dp/B01M9BS3Y5
Japan: https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B01M9BS3Y5
India: https://www.amazon.in/dp/B01M9BS3Y5
Mexico: https://www.amazon.com.mx/dp/B01M9BS3Y5
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.
