Horseplayers

Life at the Track

Ted McClelland

• Publisher: Chicago Review Press
• eBook ISBN:
  9781569762295
• Year: 2005

This fun and witty exposé of horse racing in America goes behind the scenes at the track, providing a serious gambler's-eye-view of the action. Ted McClelland spent a year at tracks and off-track betting facilities in Chicago and across the country, profiling the people who make a career of gambling on horses. This account follows his personal journey of what it means to be a player as he gambles with his book advance using various betting and handicapping strategies along the way. A colorful cast of characters is introduced, including the intensely disciplined Scott McMannis "The Professor", a onetime college instructor who now teaches a course in handicapping, and Mary Schoenfeldt, a former nun and gifted handicapper who donates all of her winnings to charity. This moving account of wins, losses, and personal turmoil provides a sobering look at gamblers, gambling, and life at the track.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• How Gambling Saved My Life
• 1 The Blind Man and the Hustler
• 2 If Wishes Were Horses
• 3 Professor Speed
• 4 First Your Money, Then Your Clothes
• 5 170 Large
• 6 Derby Day
• 7 Travels with McChump
• 8 The Rebel Enclave
• 9 The Stat Man
• 10 The Late Great Eight
• 11 Omar and Lucky
• 12 Men Betting Badly
• 14 Eureka?
• 15 “‘Seabiscuit’ Jockey Nearly Trampled”
• 16 The Gold Club
• 17 The Twenty-Five-Dollar Horse
• 18 True Adventures in Gambling
• 19 Bob the Brain’s Big Score
• 20 The One-Eyed Man Is King
• A Racetrack Glossary