A typical day playing the races is largely a waste of time spent watching sharks and wiseguys crush down the payouts on the logical contenders. That kind of day is all wrong. It's like putting barbecue sauce on a glazed doughnut. Or putting vanilla flavored creamer into a Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. But not this coming Fri. and Sat. Last year 165,000 people attended the KY derby and hundreds of thousands more betting offsite. A great many of these people only bet on horses during these days. Their betting tools are birthdays, anniversaries, etc. A fair number of them believe that betting to place means your horse has to come 2nd and betting to show means it has to come 3rd. It's not that its any easier to pick winners. But the payouts on some of the very strong horses should be juicier. It's not exactly a bonanza. The track takeout is still a monster. But it's better.

