Monday Morning Message with Jason Beem, Oct. 14, 2024

A good Monday morning to you all! Hope everyone had a good weekend and enjoyed lots of the great racing that was going on around the country. It’s a really great time for sports in general. I’ve been really enjoying following the baseball playoffs and hockey starting out as well as horse racing as we approach the Breeders’ Cup.  

One of my favorite things to do while back here in Washington State is to spend a weekend day on the Emerald Downs fifth-floor simulcast area. When I was living up here full-time in 2017 and 2018 and even right before the pandemic, the bar area on the fifth floor was my go-to hangout on the weekends. I’d watch the races, talk with other players, make notes for my podcast, and just have fun. 

Technology has made the ability to make a bet and watch racing so easy, literally at the touch of our fingers on our phones and devices. I probably watch racing on my phone at some point an average of six days a week. But I do miss going out to the track or the OTB for the day just as a fan. The camaraderie and characters at the track are a big part of my enjoyment of going. There’s never a shortage of stories, topics, and bad beats while huddled around the bank of televisions, past performances, and drinks in front of us. 

One of my favorite guys up there is named Larry. I’ve been chatting with him on the fifth floor for almost a decade. He’s an older gentleman, probably in his 80s. For years he was out there every day for simulcasting and live racing. He always plays angles, and his favorite is the “double router,” but the one that always stuck with me was Hawthorne shippers. When Hawthorne would have finished up its fall meet, Larry would scour the past performances every day for horses that left Hawthorne and went to places like Tampa Bay Downs or Fair Grounds or elsewhere. All of a sudden I’d see him up at the window hollering “Hawthorne shippers!” as he cashed another ticket. 

I don’t think he ever plays for that much money, usually a few bucks to win on horses and maybe an exacta combination or two. He’s disciplined and doesn’t get lost in the screen-to-screen combat trap that so many horseplayers (I plead guilty) can get caught up in. I’m sure lots of tracks and OTBs have many players like him. Loves the game, loves the people who enjoy the game, shows up every day, and does his homework. People like him are such bedrock customers and the kind we should be doing everything we can to retain. But more importantly, I think it is just one person out of many that makes that fifth floor at Emerald Downs such a fun place to take in the simulcast races. 

I hadn’t been to Emerald Downs in two years before this latest trip back here to Washington. When I got there, all the faces were pretty much the same, and everyone was sitting in their usual spots. There were a few folks who I didn’t see and worried whether maybe they’d passed on or just aged out of coming to the track. There are a few new faces, but of course not as many as we’d wish there were. But just getting to have a few days up there amongst racetrack friends was a real highlight of my visit home. Hope to see them all again in a few years. 

Everyone have a great week!