Posted on
10/12/2007 5:29:49 PM
Horse Betting: Double Agents and Rider Odds
By Brian Mulligan
According to Wikipedia a double agent is someone who pretends to spy on a target organization on behalf of a controlling organization, but in fact is loyal to the target organization. Double agents may be agents of the target organization who infiltrate the controlling organization, or may be previously loyal agents of the controlling organization who have been captured and turned by the target.
In horse racing, a double agent is not so covert, but smart bettors can read into how they handle the business of the two jockeys they book mounts for.
As most
horse bettors know, the agents around the track stir the drink. These are the guys that are making about 25% of what their rider earns so it pays them to put their ‘boy’ on live mounts.
An agent has to be part babysitter, full-time handicapper, part nutritionist, part psychologist, and part big brother.
He has to take care of his rider every step of the way, but just like in every other arena the cream rises to the top.
It can only make bettors more successful if they know who is pulling the strings behind each rider on their circuit and they will be shocked to know that a handful of agents really control the entry box and eventually the game.
You can get a hold of the jockey agents and their phone numbers at the track in question as it’s generally published in the condition book available at the racing office.
Southern California bettors have long been hip to the concept of why a certain rider is riding a certain horse.
Just take a look at the standings of the Del Mar meet this year. Leading pilot Michael Baze won the jockey title by 13 wins and his agent, Nick Cosato, also got some extra income from his secondary rider, Clinton Potts, who only booted home 5 wins but had mounts that earned almost $400,000.
Ronnie Ebanks had the second leading pilot Joe Talamo, but he also recently picked up Tyler Baze, who had a great meeting as a comeback kid winning with 19 of his 152 mounts.
When a top agent has two talented riders, often times the secondary rider is getting the second calls of the leaders, which in the case of Talamo, is pretty good business.
Nobody at Del Mar was riding better than Corey Nakatani and smart bettors already knew that his agent, Craig O’Brien, also booked mounts for Jon Court, who ran in the money in 33 of 116 mounts as his runners banked nearly $550K.
Brad Pegram works for both Mike Smith and David Flores and combined that pair won 38 races and their runners earned over $2.5 million during the meet.
Gamblers that want to get ahead of the curve must look under the covers and try to read into why a rider suddenly shows up for a new client and if he can uncover a jockey agent/rider collaboration, that may be enough in itself to point to a juicy bet at a juicy price.
This two for one agent action happens all over the country and just check out Chicago. Rene Douglas ran away with the riding title this summer, but his agent Dennis Cooper also made off with some booty with his second string rider Jesse Campbell, 6th in the standings.
Campbell was surely picking up the leading rider’s cast offs but even cast-offs from good barns win and they pay a healthier price to sharp bettors if they can be isolated.
Britt McGeehee handled the third and 4th leading pilots at Arlington this meet. All E. T. Baird and James Graham did was win a combined 153 during the stand.
So get a copy of the agents of the riders at your local racetrack, start putting 2 and 2 together and come up with a winning betting formula that will pay huge dividends.
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