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Zant: Good Fortune Smiles on a Day at the Races |
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By John Zant
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Friday, April 20 2007 |
Whenever the subject of horse racing comes up, Bill Connell thinks of Jack Brown. But when we spent a day at the races this week, Bill and I were careful never to pronounce his name.
Maybe that's why it was such a gorgeous day in Southern California; why the traffic on the 101, 134 and 210 freeways was flowing so smoothly; and why we hit enough winners at Santa Anita to leave with a modest profit. It paid for dinner, anyway.
Jack Brown was an old buddy of Bill's back in New Jersey who had a reverse Midas touch. Every sports wager he made turned out badly. Bill told many stories to back up that statement, including an account of a horse they bet on that drowned on a rainy day in upstate New York.
So we avoided the curse of Jack Brown when, on the spur of the moment, we headed for the racetrack Wednesday. I've become disinclined to drive to sports events in Los Angeles -- a mindset fortified by horror stories about traffic and parking at Dodger Stadium -- but a mid-week visit to Santa Anita did not seem too forbidding.
It went better than I expected. Attendance at the track was less than 5,000.
Everything moved swiftly and easily -- parking, entering the grounds, finding our choice of seats near the finish line, posting bets, buying a hot dog and a beer.
On a clear day, Santa Anita has the most beautiful setting of any sports venue. The San Gabriel Mountains form a picturesque backdrop. They were sharply etched against a blue sky Wednesday, as persistent winds scrubbed the air clean.
Bill Connell took the day off because of the winds. He is the proprietor of the All-American Surf Dog stand on the Carpinteria Bluffs. Buns and mustard would have been flying all over the place if he tried to set up for business Wednesday.
We had talked about going to the races for almost a year. Now was the time. The Santa Anita meeting has only a few days remaining. Bill fetched me and his friend Renee Fenton, and off we went.
No sooner had we arrived than I hit a winner, My Man Murf, in the second race. I was thinking about my friend Don Murphy. Bill disdains that sort of thinking. He tries to figure things out based on solid evidence. He had a Daily Racing Form and studied the detailed information about every entry between races.
I bet on Atar, an entry in the sixth race, because of her breeding. Her sire, Bertrando, stands at River Edge Farm in Buellton and is one of California's leading stallions.
Atar ran very well. Too bad she didn't have a rider. Her jockey, Saul Arias, was dismounted in a bumping incident right out of the gate.
The seventh race was the highlight of the day. Bill also studies the fluctuations in the odds, and he detected an anomaly a few minutes before post time. The No. 3 horse, Charmin Dot, was a 12-1 longshot, but in the various exacta pairings, she was the second or third choice.
"Somebody knows something," Bill said. "That's a live horse."
I had already laid a wager on Charmin Dot.
"She's going to wipe them out," I predicted.
The sight of Charmin Dot in the lead entering the stretch was like a shot of adrenaline.
"Ride that lead, No. 3! Hold on, No.3! Go for it, No. 3! Come on, No. 3! Come on!"
She won by a length and paid $25 on a $2 bet.
"God takes care of the deaf, the dumb and the hot-dog man," Bill said.
We were hungry after the program ended around 5 p.m., and on the recommendation of a friend, we went to Moffet's, a little restaurant near the track that specializes in chicken pot pies.
It reminded me of the Copper Coffee Pot that used to serve wholesome food on State Street in Santa Barbara. For dessert, the CCP always had rhubarb pie and pumpkin pie -- and that's what Moffet's had to top off our richly satisfying day.
WEEKEND DOINGS: The Santa Barbara Breakers play their third home game tonight at 7:05 p.m. against the Tri-Valley Titans at the City College Sports Pavilion. It's a rematch of the International Basketball League season opener at Livermore, where the host Titans beat the Breakers 137-130. Tri-Valley's roster includes 6-foot-9 Alan Wiggins Jr., the son of the late baseball player Alan Wiggins and brother of Stanford basektball star Candice Wiggins.
UCSB will try to foil UCLA's quest for a 100th NCAA team championship Saturday night when the Gaucho men's volleyball team hosts the Bruins in a Mountain Pacific Sports Federation playoff match at Robertson Gym. The ticket window will open at 5:45 for the 7 p.m. match. The winner will advance to the MPSF final four at Pepperdine on Thursday. UCSB will try to ride the arm of Evan Patak, who leads the nation in kills, against UCLA's defending national champions. The Bruins have two out of three matches against the Gauchos this year.
 Brad Ebner, right, critically injured in a Dos Pueblos High football game, is recovering with the help of old and new friends like Natt Oliver, left. Oliver, a Luagna Blanca athlete, is promoting a benefit Sunday film screening. Courtesy photo.
He met Ebner at the Rehabilitation Institute. "I came out crying," said Christine Oliver, the boy's mother, "but Natt was certain Brad would make a full recovery, because as he said, 'That guy has guts, I can see it.' " The movie "Quantum Hoops" is a documentary about the Caltech basketball team's struggle to win a game when its players are more acquainted with nuclear physics than fast breaks. Sunday's screening will be at 11 a.m. Tickets can be purchased in advance by calling 965-9720 or by e-mail to
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