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00:00Welcome back. This is Better Things with Joe Bianca. This is episode 3. Today we're going to talk to Nick Tamero,
00:06who's an excellent handicapper and horse player. He's also the new race caller at San Houston Race Park in Houston, Texas.
00:13He does a great job. Just completed his first meet calling thoroughbreds and is doing the quarter horses now.
00:18He's a really sharp guy and we had a great discussion. Check out our chat with Nick Tamero.
00:22Welcome back to Better Things. I'm so excited to bring this guy in, our latest guest, Nick Tamero,
00:32who is an awesome handicapper and is now the new race caller at San Houston. Nick, thanks so much for coming on.
00:38Thanks for having me, Joe. I'm really excited to join. I watched the first couple episodes with David and Randy Moss,
00:44both one a former colleague of mine and definitely David a friend of mine, so very excited to be on board.
00:50Absolutely. I know you a little bit from back in the day. You're obviously a very sharp handicapper.
00:55I miss seeing you a little bit on the NIRA broadcast, but you've got bigger fish to fry now.
00:59You just finished your first thoroughbred meet as the San Houston race caller and now you're doing the quarter horses over there.
01:05What's it been like relative to expectations? Is this kind of new ground for you? How are you feeling about it?
01:10It's been great. It's really been a fun start to the year. On a personal note, a week after the meet started,
01:19my dad passed away. And so actually calling the races was really cathartic.
01:26Coming out here and I actually called the night after he passed away and I told everybody here,
01:33they were like, what are you doing here? And I said, I would have heard a voice all night long that said,
01:36really, you're going to sit at home when you go to the track? So it was because he was who introduced me to the game.
01:42So, no, it's been a stroke of good fortune to have been in the right place at the right time last year
01:48and get an opportunity to call some of the quarter horse races to at least show that I was capable of doing it.
01:53And then I'm thankful that they gave me the opportunity to do it. So it's been a ton of fun.
01:57It's been the biggest professional challenge of my life.
02:00But something that you can can really measure in terms of whether you're getting better at it and what it all entails.
02:08So it's been very rewarding and I'm ever grateful to have been given the opportunity.
02:13Absolutely. And it's well-deserved. You do a great job and you sound great.
02:17So sorry to hear that about your dad. But let's let's dive into that a little bit.
02:20Your past, how you got into racing, what were the first tracks you were at?
02:24What were the first horses that were kind of stuck in your mind?
02:27Yeah. So my parents relocated to Texas. They're both from Brooklyn and they moved down.
02:32There you go. They moved down in my dad in the late 70s and my mom in the early 80s.
02:36And of course, my dad was incredulous that there was no horse racing in Texas.
02:39So it took until the early 90s for a racetrack to be built.
02:43We lived in the Dallas area then. And so he told me, I think I was seven or eight years old.
02:48And he said, hey, do you want to go to the racetrack on Saturday?
02:51And I, of course, knew little about what it meant.
02:53And what it meant was that we were going to get on a plane and go to New Orleans.
02:56So we went to the fairgrounds and and I loved it.
03:00I mean, it was the old fairgrounds. It was a couple of years before the fire.
03:04And I still remember sitting in a box in the clubhouse and we had a blast.
03:09And I was very inquisitive about his program and racing form.
03:14And I wanted to know what he was looking at, how he was trying to figure out who to bet.
03:18My dad was a regular at Belmont and Aqueduct in the 70s.
03:21He was a secretary at Belmont. And so he was a big fan.
03:24And little did he know what a monster he was creating.
03:27But luckily, shortly thereafter, a little racetrack opened about 30 miles west of Fort Worth called Trinity Meadows.
03:34And it is now defunct. It was open from 91 until 96.
03:38And that was where we went. We lived 50 miles away and we went all the time.
03:43I mean, there were days where I got out of school at 315.
03:46He picked me up at 315. First post was four and we made it for the second.
03:50And we stayed for the whole card. And then they introduced simulcasting here in Texas then.
03:55So we got used to betting pretty much any track we could.
03:58And and I was hooked. You know, I was I'm somebody who likes puzzles and I do crossword puzzles every day and and stuff like that.
04:06And so I, I, I love the exercise of figuring out who you think is going to win.
04:11And then obviously the the secondary portion of that, the more important part that we're talking a little bit about is the betting angle, too.
04:18Totally. And, you know, the second guy that I've had in three episodes whose dad was at the secretary of Belmont, David Aragona, said his dad was there, too.
04:26So that's unbelievable. Yeah, it's incredible.
04:29But, yeah, so, you know, honestly, I'm not just saying this because you're on the show.
04:32You're one of the guys whose opinion I respect the most out of anybody in racing.
04:35When did you start to feel like you were figuring out figuring it out?
04:38Because, you know, I'm sure, you know, it's it's it's hard to bet the horses and it takes a lot of beating to get to the point where you feel confident and good about it.
04:46When did you start to feel like you you had a good opinion and you were confident in it?
04:50Well, the real answer is any day now. Right.
04:54You know, in truth, I would say I've been positively influenced by a lot of people that helped me kind of hone my skills.
05:02And so, I mean, I would just pepper my dad with questions while I was a child.
05:07There was actually a remarkably large number of astute horse players at Trinity Meadows, and they all kind of gravitated together.
05:14There's a lot of people from other places because there was really no racing in Texas.
05:18So I would ask them a ton of questions.
05:20I would keep a lot of notes.
05:21I would save the charts from the back of the racing form so that I could go over them in great detail.
05:27And and I would, you know, I would try and remember as much as possible what happened in races to identify what you could then kind of pluck out and use in the future to bet.
05:37It was probably after I graduated from college.
05:39I graduated from college in 2006 and and I really started to to dig into it.
05:45And really the biggest influence on my handicapping by far and away is Andy Serling.
05:49So Andy and I have talked about the races on a regular basis for going on 12, 13 years now.
05:56And, you know, he really taught me how to watch a race critically, how to look at what happens that the public doesn't see.
06:04And the biggest part of that is don't be overly result oriented.
06:08You know, look at the things that that you can interpret and take and use to your advantage.
06:13So I would say probably, you know, once I got into my 20s, I felt a little bit better about it.
06:18And, you know, I think that we and you're probably similar.
06:21I think, you know, boy, if I knew what I know now when I bet that race, I would have crushed.
06:26Yeah. Well, and also especially like when you start to have a little success and you think I know everything in the world.
06:31I wish I could go back to tell that guy is going to be a lot more covered before you start to figure this thing out.
06:37But so one of the things I like about you is that not only do you have a good opinion and you're you're you're good on TV, but you're a really sharp handicapping contest player.
06:44Got a lot of success in those contests. You know, how do you approach a handicapping contest relative to when you're just going to bet on a regular day?
06:53You know, similarly, but but obviously in a more aggressive and more tactical fashion.
06:58So my first real foray into a handicapping contest of the of the more betting variety was in 2012.
07:06I qualified for the Breeders' Cup betting challenge and, you know, I was 28 years old and, you know, was was not making very much money.
07:13So being handed seventy five hundred dollars to bet, there was a big fear factor there.
07:17And so I learned about myself that I remember I wrote myself a note at the end of the contest and it said, don't enter another one of these until you're ready.
07:28And so I waited a year and a half before I played another contest.
07:32And and so what I did in doing that was, you know, with the handicapping contest, what you really have to do.
07:38And they vary, too, Joe, between the, you know, the big ones like the Breeders' Cup betting challenge.
07:42Then you might have just a Naira does these three hundred dollar weekly contests where you're playing with a smaller bankroll.
07:48But you're still the principle is the same, right?
07:50You're trying to find an opinion or two and really, really make them pay for those.
07:54So it was probably then that I realized, you know, don't go out of your comfort zone.
08:00The difference, of course, is that if you're primarily a multi race player and a horizontal better, you know, those are useless in a handicapping contest.
08:07So, I mean, I kind of feel like my my comfort zone is taking a race and trying to to really dig into that race and do with it what I can.
08:16So betting the exact getting involved in the wind pool occasionally, but also betting the tries.
08:22And so I think that's kind of the main difference.
08:25I have been more difficult on myself in contests with just the way I play.
08:30I'm I require myself to be right, probably more than the average bear.
08:35And I admire these guys that, you know, the Christian Helmers of the world and Tommy Massa's who can hit for forty, fifty thousand on one race.
08:42That's just never been the way I've played.
08:45And and so, you know, they've had a ton of success.
08:48So I've tried to introduce as much of that as I possibly can.
08:51While understanding that, you know, betting for five thousand dollars exact as in the Breeders Cup betting challenge.
08:56That's just not comfortable for me. I can't I'm not quite at that level.
09:00Can you just expound on that and what you mean by your heart on yourself, heartier on yourself in the contest?
09:05Yes. So my best contest success was the 2014 Breeders Cup.
09:09And me and basically four friends put in three friends, put in the ten thousand dollars.
09:16We divided it up evenly and I had been trying to qualify again and we figured, you know, the hell with it.
09:21Let's just buy an entry and see what happens. So first day, no success.
09:25We had about thirty eight hundred bucks going into Saturday.
09:28And quite honestly, I was looking at the college football slate on Saturday morning.
09:31I was not not enthused about what was going to happen.
09:34And so I, you know, the I hit a trifecta in the third or fourth race.
09:39They were off the turf that day because there had been a lot of rain the night before for the non Breeders Cup races.
09:43And I hit a trifecta and I thought to myself, you know, you can do all right in this thing.
09:47Just be smart and play what play in your comfort zone.
09:50And so, I mean, boom, I hit to try in the Breeders Cup juvenile Phillies for like twenty five, twenty two grand.
09:55And and two races later, I had gone from two hundred and fortieth to first.
10:00So but because I didn't really have that quick strike approach to betting, I needed to hit again and again to stay in contention.
10:09And ultimately, the mile that year was run right before the classic.
10:14And I ended up having five dollars on the try because I mainly just used the Europeans that I thought made sense.
10:20And that included Caracanti, Anadon and and space, not space blues.
10:25But one of the one of the horses that Jamie Spencer wrote, Trade Storm.
10:29So not that I'm remembering them too vividly, but I hit that.
10:33Right. Yeah. You remember the scores, right? I can probably remember bad beats, though.
10:37But so, boom, you know, I hit for twenty five thousand there.
10:39Well, at the end of the day, I hit I hit like seven trifectas.
10:43And so, you know, some of the guys that may have really one of my better opinions on the day was I like Judy,
10:49the beauty over better lucky and another long shot.
10:52And a lot of those guys would have hit that race for maybe 50 or 60 K.
10:56And I mean, I hit it for like twelve.
10:58So that was kind of where I realized this time went by.
11:02I have to develop more of the skill set to to really zoom in on the good opinions and make them pay.
11:08Gotcha. And so much a handicapping.
11:10And I would I would assume I've never I've never played in one of those big tournaments,
11:12but I assume playing in the tournaments is trying to keep a clear head because it really plays with your mind.
11:18Like if you have bad beats or if you have a bad day not to get too down, not to go on till.
11:24Is there any give me the secret, Nick?
11:26Is there any way that you can get through that easily?
11:29Can you do meditation?
11:30Do you like is there something special you can do to like move past the last day or the last race and stay focused?
11:36Yeah. What's funny is I think most people, especially in the racing world, would consider me a pretty social guy.
11:40When it comes to those, I try to get as far away from everybody else as possible.
11:44So that day, that Saturday at Santa Anita, there's have you ever been to Santa Anita?
11:49Yeah. OK. So when you go in the clubhouse entrance, you get into like a little lobby area.
11:54And if you look up, there's like a little alcove over the second floor.
11:57Well, there's tables up there and nobody knew they were up there.
12:00So me and a couple of guys went up there and we were the only ones sitting up there on Friday.
12:04Well, then on Saturday, I switched sides of the room because I was no good on Friday.
12:08And of course, you can't sit in the same place. But it was great because it was away from everybody.
12:12And, you know, I was by myself. The problem was that, you know, I had partners in the contest and the Wi-Fi was garbage.
12:18So I started hitting these bets and I'm trying to talk to them about it.
12:21And I really can't. But the point being, yeah, I wanted to be I didn't want to hear people cheering.
12:26I didn't want to see a leaderboard. You know, I wanted to be as as calm and measured about it as possible.
12:32So, you know, I really enjoy the the new setup at the NHC because we're all in one ballroom.
12:38But honestly, in the past, I would sit in an alternate place because for the same reason, I didn't want to hear cheering.
12:43You know, I didn't want to I didn't want everybody at the table to say, oh, God, that 40 to one shot just came in.
12:48That guy had it. That guy had it. That guy had it. Like, really? Maybe none of them had it.
12:52So so I would try to be as reclusive as possible when that would happen.
12:57Because, yeah, there's a huge mental component to it, just like with anything else.
13:01You know, if anything you do regularly that you want to get better at, you need to keep the clearest head possible.
13:07For sure. I want to just we're going to come back to the handicapping thing, but I want to ask a little bit more about your race calling gig.
13:13You're close friends with Travis Stone. He's obviously the race caller at Churchill Downs and does a great job.
13:18Was there anything that said that he imparted in you or that something that you picked up watching him and listening to him that you try to use now when you new job?
13:27Yeah. I mean, I've told people I'm kind of a Travis Stone acolyte.
13:30So I think you can probably hear some of what he says and in what I say.
13:34And I listen to a lot of races anyway. But when Travis got the job at Churchill and Travis and I go back to his early days, Louisiana Downs.
13:43But when he got the job at Churchill, I went to the Derby his first year.
13:47And we kind of the night before the race, we walked through winning scenarios for every horse.
13:53And, you know, we both kind of knew that American Pharoah was likely to win.
13:57But he pretty much had something in mind to say, regardless of who it was.
14:03The key to it, though, is that when you do that, it is very easy to sound robotic and you don't want to come off as, you know,
14:11you don't want everybody to say, oh, God, he had to find a way to fit that line in.
14:14But, you know, what it helped me with is that Travis and I are both handicappers.
14:18So, you know, we we walked through the race basically as if we were handicapping it.
14:23You know, and here's what we think is going to happen in the opening half mile.
14:26And that's a huge, huge part of race calling for me.
14:30You know, and so you'll you'll hear sometimes, you know, I'll make a comment about the pace.
14:34And I know I can tell it took a few weeks, but looking through the binoculars, I could tell when they were going slow.
14:39And, you know, I might make a comment about somebody being on the lead and it being unexpected.
14:43And I just think that that kind of enhances the viewer's experience because they're there.
14:48They're getting a little bit more buy in from the voice that they're hearing.
14:51And I think that that that will help in the long run.
14:54So being a horse, let's be honest, I'm a horse player who calls races.
14:58But that I can't you know, I'm not going to I'm not going to sway from the original part of me in racing.
15:06And so, yeah, Travis was is a huge influence.
15:09He's been very, very gracious about everything.
15:12And fortunately, our big weekend here, he was actually in town.
15:16And so, you know, he gave me some advice on one of the graded stakes races that we run here is a mile and a half on the turf.
15:22And so he said, which is this is not the kind of thing he says very often.
15:26He says, look, I'm good at calling three turn turf races.
15:29So let me give you some advice. And so he gave me a few things.
15:32And he said he said the first time they come to the wire, you should be through the field about one and a half times.
15:40But take your time. Don't rush through it, because you will be I mean, you will you will be gassed by the time they're at the quarter bowl.
15:48And he was right. And so I kind of reminded myself mentally the whole time.
15:52Slow down, you know, call them one by one.
15:54Obviously, make sure you've memorized and just deliver it in a calm and calculated way.
16:00So Travis has a very particular set of skills and it's calling three turn turf races.
16:04I appreciate that. But so so and I also appreciate what you're saying.
16:09And I think it does help the horse player watching the race to feel like the race caller knows what he's talking about in terms of handicapping the race and what's expected and what's unexpected,
16:19because then it kind of reflects the way you're feeling and it helps the race develop, I think, in your mind.
16:24But so how do you bet less now that you have this job?
16:28You bet more. Are you are you more in tune with what's going on in racing less?
16:31Like how does it compare? I probably will by percentage.
16:35My Sam Houston handle was a lot higher than than it would have been in prior years.
16:38So, yeah, they don't they don't have a problem with me betting here, which is good.
16:42And so, yeah, I probably did that a little less, you know, just having more responsibilities.
16:48I definitely bet there were tracks that I bet in the past with some regularity.
16:52Like I didn't place one wager at Oakland Park all year.
16:54And that's a place that I usually would pay some attention to. It's generally popular down here with Arkansas being close by.
17:00But, you know, when you've looked at Sam Houston and prepared to the point where I'm going on TV to talk about the races for 30 minutes before
17:08and all the other assorted tracks I look at for anybody who wants to pay me to look at those, I just didn't have time.
17:14So, yeah, I would say to answer your question, my by percentage, my Sam Houston handle was a lot higher.
17:20But, I mean, I'm the guy that's grabbing the aqueduct peepees off the printer here in the office before I head upstairs.
17:26Still printing them out old school.
17:29Yeah, I'm kind of back and forth.
17:31I know there are days where I still want to print them, but I am probably more than 50 percent on the iPad.
17:38It's very clean. Yeah.
17:40I feel like when I'm at the track, I definitely like to have like a racing forum that I can mark up.
17:45And then when I'm at home, I'll use the iPad or the laptop.
17:49But, yeah, so Sam Houston is a great track.
17:51And it's what I think kind of one of the unsung heroes among horse players in terms of low takeout.
17:56They got big fields there.
17:58It obviously doesn't get a ton of national publicity, but I think they do right by their players.
18:03And more people should take heed to that and bet it.
18:07Why is that?
18:08Is it people that are in the management?
18:10Is it just an overall kind of thrust of the track?
18:13Why do you guys do so right by the players?
18:16You know, I think the leadership going back about 15 years felt like with the signal growing in popularity in the evening time,
18:25there needed to be something that helped it stand out.
18:29And so Sam Houston was actually the first domestic racetrack to have the Dime Super.
18:32And that became kind of the precursor to some more player-oriented wagering evolution.
18:39And that led to the 12 percent takeout in all the multis.
18:42So we went to 12 percent takeout in all the multis.
18:44I want to say about 10 years ago.
18:46And it's just been in the last few years that Indiana Grand and Canterbury have now kind of matched it and eclipsed it a little bit.
18:54But we're still the only place that does it in every multi-race pool.
18:57So, yeah, you know, I think it's one of those where, you know,
19:01we run at a time of year where the competition at night is not particularly robust or it wasn't years ago.
19:08I should say it's getting much more significant now with Turfway being a major signal with big purses and big fields.
19:15And Delta Downs is popular. They're going to be running at night next year.
19:18They haven't the last two years, but we wanted something that stood out a little bit.
19:22And I think with the opening date being in early January and getting a date that was kind of uniquely ours and having the player friendly wagers,
19:30we could generate enough chatter about it to really have some excitement.
19:34And so luckily it's played out very well.
19:36The other thing that we have going for us is that the state of Texas developed something called the horse industry escrow account three years ago.
19:43And what that did was it took some tax money that was previously being diverted to other sources and put it into racing.
19:50So the purse fund basically doubled.
19:53And so what that has enabled us to do is bring back some barns that maybe weren't here for quite some time and really develop an open company offering that it's worthwhile.
20:04Understanding, of course, that, I mean, we're competing sitting in Houston.
20:09Delta Downs is about 100 miles away. Fairgrounds is 200 miles, 250 miles away.
20:14And Oakland's 300 miles away. So, I mean, they're all close. Right.
20:17And New Mexico is not that far away. Texas is big. But, you know, there's a lot of competition in the market.
20:23So you want to do whatever you can to get the horses here and you want to do whatever you can to get the horse player attention as well.
20:30Texarkana, baby. It's burning in my head.
20:33It's interesting you bring up the Texas purse thing because I feel like everybody is very cognizant of that.
20:39We get these releases from the TTA for the sales. Every single time there's a quote about how great everybody is doing because of that Texas law.
20:46So I think that's great. And that's kind of the opposite of where some other states are going, where they're kind of trying to do decoupling and all this other stuff.
20:53Yeah. And it was kind of the, you know, the state has been very hard on racing in the sense that they've not entertained the idea of alternative gaming at all.
21:01And, I mean, I shouldn't say it too loud in my office, but I think there are a lot of people in this building that would prefer we have slots than the horse industry escrow account.
21:08But we are owned by Penn National Gaming. But at the same time, I mean, this was a lifeline.
21:13And obviously going back to 2019, I mean, we were running 30, 32 dates here and a lot of those were eight race cards.
21:20And I mean, we were handling around a million dollars.
21:23This is now the second consecutive meet where we've run at least 44 dates and we've handled an average of two million a night.
21:28So, I mean, it has made a dramatic impact right away.
21:32You know, you mentioned you're talking a little bit about college football before. I know you're a big sports guy. Now it's sports betting.
21:38It's not legal in Texas, is it? Yeah. Right. It's not. No, it's not.
21:43That's my question. Assuming it does get legalized there eventually, how do you think that split is going to be between your racing handle and your sports betting handle?
21:52Oh, I'll tell you, Joe. I'm a notoriously awful sports bettor.
21:56That is not me. That is not me.
21:58It's true. It won't stop me. You know, I actually took the family on a little vacation to Florida early in the week.
22:05We stopped at La Verge in Louisiana on the way back, which is another Penn National Gaming property.
22:09And they have sports books now. So, sports betting is legal in Louisiana.
22:12And I kind of walked by and I looked in and I thought, I could probably make a future bet or two.
22:16And I thought, you know, I could probably just roll my cash up and give it to my daughter to play with in the backseat.
22:21And it would have a lot more. I'd get a lot more bang for the buck.
22:24I mean, I would see myself being recreational at most.
22:27You know, I was actually listening to you talking to Randy Moss about it.
22:31And I've joked with people who have been very similar, is that you really lose the appreciation for the game itself when you have a bet on it.
22:38Yeah. Well, especially now, I'm watching the NHL playoffs and it's agonizing.
22:47It makes it agonizing and you can't enjoy just the pure drama and the pure excitement of the sport.
22:53Yeah, it really takes away.
22:55Because, right, you could be watching this incredible back and forth basketball game and you've got them plus three and a half.
23:03And they miss a shot down to a foul and you lose a game by four.
23:07And it's like, oh, my God, I completely wasted my time and money.
23:10Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, yeah, it's legal here now in New York and New Jersey.
23:14So it's obviously I but I try to keep it just as like a little fun action thing.
23:18You know what I mean? Not put any serious money into it.
23:20Also, the other thing is, I've said this before, that once you've played horses and once you've hit like a big pick five or pick six or whatever,
23:26it's hard to get excited about waiting three and a half hours to cash minus 110 bets.
23:31You know, it's just and then to try to chase that other high, you get into parlays and those are always frustrating.
23:36So, yeah, no, it's true.
23:38Well, and I laugh at I follow a lot of the sports betting guys on Twitter.
23:42And so they'll you know, some some big upset will take place on a Sunday in the NFL and they'll say, oh, you know, it's circa.
23:48That team was plus 480.
23:50I was like, really? That's exciting because I can find the five to one shot.
23:53That's a hell of a lot more likely to win than they were to beat those guys.
23:56Yes. No, absolutely. Yeah.
23:58Like even even like the biggest long shots, even, you know, tennis, the biggest long shots plus seven, eight hundred, nine hundred.
24:04And what does that what does that guy win?
24:06One out of every 100 matches against the dollar joke or whatever.
24:09You mentioned basketball.
24:11No, you're a Houston guy.
24:13You're a Rockets fan, right?
24:15I'm a Rockets fan.
24:16Yeah. So tell me this.
24:18So I'm not a diehard Brooklyn Nets fan, but I I liked what they were building before they traded for James Harden.
24:24And I want to say traded for him.
24:25It all went to shit.
24:27Did you take any satisfaction like I did from the Sixers flaming out and James Harden being so terrible in that series?
24:34Yeah, a lot.
24:35I have to say a lot.
24:37And in large part because, you know, it was like a revolving door of who are we going to pair with James here and make it work?
24:44And it just never, you know, it was never going to happen.
24:47And really, one of the Rockets insider things I get emailed to me the other day said, basically, the shame about him getting traded is that it didn't happen three or four years earlier.
24:56And given them a chance at a full rebuild a little bit before that.
24:59But I'm going to be very surprised if James Harden ever wins anything meaningful because he just doesn't look like he has the desire.
25:06He absolutely he had.
25:08I don't know if he still has the ability, but he just look everything looks like he's dogging it.
25:13You know, it just doesn't look like he's he's in it for anybody but himself.
25:17Well, it's so it's so obvious, too, because I think that, you know, sports pundits, they they kind of gas it up a little bit sometimes how much desire means in sports success.
25:27We see a guy like him.
25:29Then it's really black and white.
25:31When you see a guy like him jogging around the court, not wanting the ball, just passing it away every time he gets it.
25:36You're like, that's a guy who doesn't care, which makes me think ninety nine point nine percent of people do care because it's so obvious when I see it in him.
25:43Yeah, I totally agree.
25:45I think he's the exception to the rule there, especially when you've reached the, you know, the level in the game that he has.
25:51You'd think that you'd want to tear down the walls to do everything you could.
25:54And it's a shame because, I mean, had Chris Paul not gotten hurt in twenty eighteen, that Rockets team that won sixty seven games was likely going to win the Western Conference.
26:02And I think they would have just steamrolled Cleveland in the in the finals, much like Golden State did.
26:07So that was probably their one opportunity.
26:09And of course, that was a team that really when push came to shove was better because of Chris Paul.
26:13I mean, it was because Chris Paul is Chris Paul's also a guy who unfortunately hasn't won anything meaningful either.
26:18But I don't necessarily know. I think he gets probably a little too much blame for that.
26:23And when the Rockets were good, I think Harden got a little bit too much credit.
26:26So, yes, I did not shed a tear when I saw the when I saw the Sixers lose.
26:31And and my my friends from Philly got an earful from me.
26:34I said, you guys wanted that guy. Yeah, you got.
26:37That's the thing. That's the thing. They were so excited when that trade happened.
26:40I was like, you watch you watch in a couple of months time.
26:43Yeah. And he's not. And I said I said to my friend Pat Cummings, who, of course, you know as well and who's who's been on this network.
26:50I said, you know, he is not a Philly guy.
26:53As you guys like rough and tumble, blue collar, scrappy guys.
26:57You know, you want somebody who's going to who's going to leave it all out there.
27:01That guy leaves nothing out there. I mean, he he's not your guy.
27:04He leaves it all in the strip club, though. That's where he leaves.
27:07I've heard he likes to make it rain.
27:10Oh, all right. Just to transition off that somehow.
27:14We had this we had this chat this week on the writers room because there's this whole discussion now about the Triple Crown spacing with the Rich Strike passing on the Preakness.
27:22And, you know, there's there's been a lot of people who are advocating for spacing out the Triple Crown.
27:26Mark Randy Moss, who was just on the show and was a pain. I obviously respect that time is in favor of that.
27:31I disagree. I think that if anything, we're kind of rewarding bad behavior and horses not running as frequently and trainers being too scared to run their horses.
27:40Where do you fall on that? Yeah, I'm definitely on your side.
27:43I have a lot of respect for Randy's opinion, but I think that's a that's kind of catering to a new element in racing in a detrimental fashion.
27:53And I think we really run the risk of. Well, first of all, I think there's two different conversations.
27:58The the idea prior to 2015, the discussion of elongating the Triple Crown had to do with making it easier.
28:06And everybody thought, oh, it'll be a lot easier if we space it out more.
28:09And, you know, they don't have to come back in two weeks and this now. Well, then it happened twice.
28:13And so now the only part of the conversation that you get is, well, they're not going to run back quick enough.
28:18So we have to elongate it, because in my opinion, it'll be a hell of a lot harder if it's run over the course of 10 to 12 weeks.
28:25I mean, it will be hard for you to keep your horse that good. You will have you will invite in a whole new slew of of new shooters.
28:33You know, theoretically, let's say the Preakness decided, well, we're going to go five weeks after the Belmont.
28:38So maybe there's a horse that wins the Derby and Belmont. And then in a year like this, they have Jack Christopher to contend with in the Preakness.
28:44You know, that wouldn't be fun. And I mean, there are obviously a lot of trainers over time who've had horses that developed later in the year that were all very, very good.
28:53One of them has white hair and has won a lot of races and, you know, had what three had three straight or two straight Eclipse Award winners that didn't really jump onto the scene until August.
29:03So, yeah, as far as the it's unfortunate, because in a year like this where Ridge Strike didn't run back, you know, Pimlico's Preakness itself and the undercard is obviously showing the ill effects of horsemen not running back frequently enough.
29:18I just think, Joe, there's so much danger in catering to them because then we're going to we're going to lose a great amount of tradition.
29:26We're going to lose the the standard that you have to maintain.
29:30And, you know, I went to at the at the symposium in Tucson last year.
29:34One of the more interesting panels to me, and I'm somebody with no experience on the the racing office side of the game.
29:40You know, I'm just the guy who critiques the overnight, not the guy who puts the overnight together.
29:44And so one of the things that all and those were some of the best minds in the game that have had those jobs, you know, the likes of Mike Laycow and Rick Hammerly and Tom Robbins and Martin Panza.
29:55And one of the things they all said was we have to give horsemen less options.
29:59Giving them more options is actually detrimental.
30:02And I think this is a good example of it, because if you you know, I understand that the trainers like Bobby Frankel changed the game in a way that he made it clear that his horses weren't going to run back and quicker than 45 to 60 days.
30:14And that is something that can exist while we still keep the Triple Crown schedule intact and something somewhat sacred.
30:21Yeah, well, you're not you put the races four or five weeks apart.
30:25Eventually, that's not going to be enough time.
30:26Then we'll make it, you know, and now you're asking the public to care about the Triple Crown for two months.
30:31Like that's a big ask of the general public who really gives racing such little time a day to begin with that.
30:37I just it seems so, so ridiculous.
30:39And also, like you're saying, I think there's too many graded stakes, which leads to too many stallions, which leads to stallions getting shipped overseas before they even have a chance to prove themselves.
30:49And there's too many tracks.
30:50You know, I wonder how you feel about this.
30:52Sam Houston is a smaller track, but Sam Houston is one of those tracks that actually does something to deserve its business.
30:57Like you said, you guys don't have the alternative gaming.
30:59You rely solely on the purses and the and the handle.
31:03So I think that that's a smaller track that deserves to stick around.
31:06But there are so many small tracks across this country that are just slot machine parlors with a racetrack attached to it.
31:12And especially in the mid-Atlantic, I think there are so many racetracks in a small amount of space that you have 9000 options for where you can run your horse.
31:21And no wonder we have five, six, seven horses fields polluting the sport.
31:24I wonder how do you feel about that?
31:26Do you think the sport needs a contraction sooner rather than later?
31:29Like I do?
31:30Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, I do.
31:32Right. And I'm sympathetic to the people who would lose their jobs in that scenario.
31:36No, it's not. I don't want to see that happen.
31:38Yeah, I'm not like you have to go.
31:40You got to go.
31:41It's just something that has to happen naturally, I think, over time.
31:44Yeah, I agree.
31:45And I think, unfortunately, the tracks we've lost in the last 10 years were the wrong ones.
31:49We didn't need to lose a racing jewel in Chicago, and we didn't need to lose a track in Boston.
31:56We probably needed to lose some tracks that were not generating a great amount of handle, not generating a great amount of interest, and just giving a lot of horsemen options to run horses in races where the fields were six or seven.
32:08And if that track didn't exist, then it might have been nine or ten in a bigger place.
32:13So, yeah, I agree with that completely.
32:15And I think it's obviously it's unfortunate that things have gotten to that point, but they have.
32:20And it's better for us to embrace it and do something about it and be positioned to make things kind of move forward a little bit.
32:29But, yeah, as far as the great at stakes go, if anybody wants to seriously have a conversation about elongating the Triple Crown, I want every race pre-Kentucky Derby to be a grade two at most.
32:39Because there should be no reason why a horse can be whisked off to stud immediately after the Kentucky Derby with a losing effort.
32:46And, you know, we've had that happen a lot.
32:48Yeah.
32:49And it just doesn't, you know, it doesn't need to it doesn't need to happen.
32:52And so basically, you know, even if the great at stakes committee divided it into two separate stacks and said, OK, these are preps and these are the main races, these are going to be the only grade ones.
33:02I mean, we've seen a decrease in the number of grade ones on dirt in this country.
33:05We've also seen a huge increase in the number of grade ones on turf.
33:08Yeah.
33:09So, you know, you want to balance that out, I think, as much as possible.
33:12But I mean, you and I are are not old.
33:14And but we can remember when there were a hell of a lot more grade ones on dirt in New York.
33:18You know, I can think of about five of them right now, right off the top of my head that aren't grade ones anymore.
33:23Some of them aren't even grade twos anymore.
33:25So, you know, that's not necessarily a bad thing when it's done in the right fashion and it's done with a with a real end goal.
33:32Well, when you think about the Derby prep schedule, I think if Churchill Downs had not instituted the points schedule and the qualifying points, no horse would ever run more than once before the Derby.
33:43Instead, now that you have that and you generally need to run in more than one race to qualify for the Derby, you get 11, 12, 13 horse fields in the Risen Star.
33:51You get these big fields and it makes it exciting to pay attention to the Derby.
33:55It's a Derby trail all the way up to the race.
33:58You know, if you get if you get rid of I'm not saying they get rid of that, but if you elongate the Triple Crown, get ready for four race schedules, the Belmont, the Derby, the maybe one race in the summer and then the Breeders' Cup, because that's what's happening.
34:12I think about Malatha last year and they said right before right before the Alabama, we're going to run in the Alabama and then the Breeders' Cup.
34:19That's 10 weeks, 10 weeks apart.
34:21And it's just, you know, no, I'm not disrecting those connections in particular, but it should be you should be embarrassed.
34:28Honestly, you should be embarrassed to say I'm going to run my horse.
34:30There's going to be nothing wrong with her and I'm going to run her 10 weeks later because she's just too valuable, I guess.
34:35And you're too scared of her losing.
34:36Like, is that what it is?
34:39Yeah, I think so.
34:40You know, it's also one of the bad things about having a lot of these stakes laden cards, too, because it seems as if the old Super Saturday at Belmont has become Traverse Day.
34:50Mm hmm. Right.
34:51And a bunch of horses run on Traverse Day and then don't run again until the Breeders' Cup.
34:54So I'm in the I'm in the small camp of people that would love for us to I know that it really limits our options.
35:01It also affects European participation.
35:03But I'd love a real conversation to happen about a Breeders' Cup taking place in December, because I think it would really bring back a lot of credibility to fall racing that has really taken it on the chin over the last 10 to 15 years.
35:17And I mean, no track has suffered more than Belmont in that regard.
35:20And then we've even seen some some Keeneland drop off in recent years.
35:24And there's obviously always going to be overwhelming support for Keeneland.
35:27But, yeah, those have been those are things that that I think are detrimental.
35:32And I'd love to see us reverse course on some of them.
35:34I mean, look, you could say what you want about Churchill Downs in general.
35:38I don't say anything negative about them because, you know, I work at a racetrack now.
35:42So I have to say nice things.
35:44But they get the derby right.
35:46You know, start to finish.
35:47They get the derby right.
35:48They have constructed a schedule now that has people talking about the Kentucky Derby in September.
35:53Yeah, we were we were talking about it for four months from January on.
35:56We talked about the derby pretty much every week.
35:58Yeah, it's unbelievable.
36:00And even when I was listening to your show every week in 2020 and even when it was in September, you guys were talking about every week then.
36:06Right. I mean, you know, it's amazing.
36:08And so the fact that they have now using that September meet to run the Pocahontas in the Iroquois and it's two weeks after Saratoga and we're already talking about the derby.
36:17Yeah. And so, you know, that and the point system has worked out really well.
36:21You know, I don't think that excuse me, that this year's result is any kind of indictment of the point system at all.
36:27You know, there's going to be years where certain races end up being good and there's going to be years where certain races don't.
36:33So that's just part of the ebbs and flows of racing and and makes it that much more exciting.
36:37Well, I think, if anything, it's an argument for the point system because Rich Strike ran in those two races.
36:42He didn't run great, but he ran well enough to get on the A.E. list.
36:45He shows what's what's what's important is if you feel you have confidence in your horse running these spots, you don't necessarily need to win.
36:51Just show up and run. And if you run well enough, maybe you can get into the Kentucky Derby.
36:55It's an interesting idea you said about the December Breeders' Cup.
36:58Then then Belmont will never get another.
37:00No, that's the problem.
37:03Yeah, yeah. That one in 05 where it was like 40 degrees and no one ever wanted to be back again.
37:07But you're totally right about the Belmont Fall Championship meet has fallen off.
37:11You know, I shudder to think about the Jockey Club Gold Cup being a grade two somewhere down the line in the near future.
37:17But listen, you've been very gracious with your time and now you've got to get out of here and start calling the quarter horses.
37:21So I'll just get you out of here on this. It's a very broad question.
37:24So, you know, take your time. Think about it. You have you have a young daughter.
37:28I don't know. She's obviously too young to really get the racetrack and all of that yet.
37:32But I assume once she's older, you're going to start bringing her there and teach her the game.
37:36Maybe you will. But 10, 15 years from now, when she's a teenager, where is racing situated?
37:42Where's the handle? Is the handle up or down? Have we gotten the drug problem in racing under control?
37:47Is it more or less popular with the general public?
37:50What do you think it's going to be like in 10 or 15 years when she could actually develop an interest in the sport?
37:56Well, she came to the track on Kentucky Derby Day and she had a hat on, so it's a good start.
38:01So, yeah, she will be exposed to race. She has been exposed to racing.
38:04Now, one of the good things about Covid was that she got to lay around and watch races with me a lot.
38:08But, you know, I mean, looking at it 10 or 15 years ago from now, a lot of what has happened involves a migration of regular handle to computer assisted wagering,
38:23which I think is something that's going to continue in a very significant way.
38:27I'd like to think that there's going to be an introduction of a fixed odds market to this country that will help handle in general.
38:35Will it cannibalize the tote to an extent? Yes, there's no question about it.
38:39It will take tote players out.
38:41However, it will eliminate a huge barrier to entry for a lot of young people that I think could really find themselves getting into racing.
38:50They just can't understand when it's explained to them why they got seven to two on the horse that they bet at eight to one.
38:56You know, so I think a little bit of that.
38:58And I got to have a ton of respect for the guys at Betmakers and what they're doing and what they've gotten started in New Jersey.
39:03So I'm really rooting for them. I think, Joe, I think there's going to be contraction.
39:07I think we'll have we probably have about 10 percent fewer tracks now than we did 15 years ago.
39:12I think the only new ones maybe are the one in Canada, Century Mile.
39:17I don't think there's going to be any new ones between now and 15 years from now.
39:21I know there's conversations about it in Georgia and Mississippi.
39:24We'll see. But I fear for what racing looks like long term in places like Southern California, South Florida, because decoupling is a major issue in South Florida.
39:35I think the strata group is committed very steadfastly to Gulfstream.
39:38And I hope so. But I think we're going to see fewer racetracks.
39:41We're going to see comparable handle. But I think a portion of it is going to be going to a fixed odds marketplace.
39:46I do think that racing in Kentucky will be strong and it will get stronger.
39:51I think the popularity of the Derby is just on this crazy upward trajectory.
39:55It kind of it blows my mind that as racing in general has become less popular, the Derby has become so much more popular.
40:03It's crazy. We sold out every suite here at Sam Houston in March.
40:07You know, it was people wanted to come for Derby first. We we ran our first race at 1030 local time on Derby Day.
40:12There were already people coming. So it's insane. So, yeah, I guess that's sort of my roundabout answer.
40:18I hope that we develop some real alternatives to funding purse accounts that doesn't involve a big infusion of alternate gaming, because I think that's, you know, that's kind of the forbidden fruit.
40:29And we ate it hardcore 20 plus years ago. And, you know, look around at a lot of those places that had that initial infusion of slot money and see what's going on at parks and Louisiana Downs and, you know, places that really wish that they maybe had gone a different route as time went by.
40:45Yeah, it's a crutch. You know, that's all it is. And you can't you can't rely on it.
40:50Well, Nick, thank you so much for the time. This was so I could talk to you all day. Honestly, this was so much fun.
40:55I know you're coming up Belmont. We got to love to get a drink with you. And maybe in the future we could sit down and do this in person. So thanks so much, Nick, for coming on.
41:02Definitely. I greatly look forward to it. Keep up the great work. And I appreciate you having me.
41:05I appreciate it. And congrats on the gig. You're doing doing a hell of a job.
41:09Thanks again, my friend.
41:11So before we get out of here, as is tradition here on Better Things with Joe Bianco, we're going to do a little bit of a future bet segment.
41:17Now, I haven't gone back and looked quite at how good my bets did in the first two episodes.
41:22I think some of them hit. Some of them missed. Maybe at the end of the season, I'll go back and do a little rundown.
41:27It's just for some accountability sake. But so for this one, I'm a tennis guy.
41:31If you don't know, I play a lot of tennis. And if you're in Brooklyn and want to catch that work in tennis, give me a call.
41:36Give me a text. Hit me up on Twitter. I'm always around to play.
41:39But so the French Open starts this weekend, obviously, in Roland Garros in Paris.
41:43And I got a couple of little ideas for you, both on the men's and the women's side.
41:48So we'll start with the men's side. I'm going to give you a chalky play.
41:51Who is Carlos Alcaraz, who's plus 220. If you haven't seen him play, even if you're not a tennis fan, watch Carlos Alcaraz.
41:57He's 18, 19 years old. I think he's not even 19 yet. I think he's still 18.
42:01He is the next big thing. He is going to dominate tennis for the next 10 years at least.
42:06He's incredible to watch. He's already beaten Rafael Nadal a bunch on clay.
42:10And it goes to show you how good he is. He's the favorite in the French Open.
42:13Rafael Nadal has won the Roland Garros 13 times. And Carlos Alcaraz, an 18-year-old, is favorite over him.
42:19So I like him at plus 220. But if you're looking for a little bit more of a price, there's a guy, Casper Rude, who I like a little bit at plus 2200.
42:26Probably never heard of him, but as a tennis guy, I know him. He's a dirtballer specialist.
42:31He plays great on clay. And it's not really that era anymore where you just have to defer to the big names like Djokovic and Nadal and Federer.
42:39Some other guys can pop up and win majors these days. So that's a little bit of an outside shot for you, Casper Rude, at 22-1.
42:46On the women's side, we have a shockingly big favorite. It's Iga Svantec. She's won the French Open before.
42:52She's minus 110, which is in a 64-person field. That's a very, very low number.
42:59So I can't take that, obviously. So I got three women for you. I got Simona Halep at plus 1400, so that's 14-1.
43:06She's won the French Open before. She's a great defender, sprints all over the court, chases everything down.
43:11So I got her at plus 1400. Maria Sakkari, who's from Greece, she's plus 2000. I like her a little bit.
43:18Similar kind of build and similar kind of style, really darts around the court.
43:22And that's so key in clay court tennis, as opposed to grass and hard court, where it's more about power.
43:28The French Open and clay court tennis is a lot more about defense, and she's a really good defender.
43:32So to run it down on the men's side, I've got Carlos Alcaraz, plus 220, and Casper Rude, plus 2200.
43:38On the women's side, I've got Simona Halep, plus 1400. Maria Sakkari, plus 2000.
43:43And trust me, if one of them wins, I'll be back to crow on it about it on the next episode.
43:48So thank you so much for watching Better Things with Joe Bianca.
43:50Thank you so much to Nick Tamero for joining us.
43:52Thanks to our producer, Patty Wolf, and our editors, Anthony LaRocca, Aliyah LaRocca, and Nathan Wilkinson.
43:57We'll see you next time.