This year’s Kentucky Derby was a handicapper’s nightmare. Spend hours and hours dissecting videos and studying charts to hear this story.
It was just a few minutes to post when Heather Green got to the counter at the Borgata’s race and sportsbook and wanted to bet the No. 20 horse, Ethereal Road.
One problem. Ethereal Road was scratched Friday morning. So Green looked up at the betting board and tried to come up with a Plan B. That’s when ticket writer Anita Poma recommended the No. 21, the mostly unknown Rich Strike.
“[To heck with] it,” Green said. “Gimme the 21.”
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Rich Strike was the longest shot on the board at 80-1, and somehow won in the biggest Derby upset in over 100 years.
The Borgata was typical of sportsbooks around the country when Rich Strike nipped Epicenter at the rail.
“The room got very quiet when the race was over,” said Tom Gable, the Borgata’s sportsbook director.
Twitter was a graveyard of similar reactions. Rich Strike wasn’t even in the field until Friday morning.
But it took a little over two minutes on Saturday to make him immortal. And for Green, an assistant professor at Stockton College in Atlantic City, it turned a spontaneous decision into the laugh of a lifetime.
“I haven’t bet on horses in a few years, but around 5 o’clock I decided why not,” said Green, a former basketball and field hockey player at Holy Spirit High.
Her $10 bet turned into a modest $818 windfall as Rich Strike paid $163.60 to win, $74.20 to place, and $29.40 to show. But Green’s experience is the perfect example of how all the intense analysis of bloodlines, speed figures, and past performances often don’t matter when you put 20 horses in one race.
Green tipped the ticket writer about a hundred bucks (nice) and then chuckled.
“I might go over to the roulette wheel and put a hundred on No. 8,” she said.
