Horse Racing Fantasy Community

My first memories of horse racing were going to Santa Anita, Hollywood Park and Del Mar with my parents watching such great horses as Hill Rise, Mustard Plaster, Native Diver, Mr. Consistency and Barbizon. My first memorable handicapping success came on Copper Mel…I read the form and plotted the race with him sitting just behind the leaders then rallying past to win. My $10 got me back over $30. My brother and I would mark our bets in the newspaper on Ernie Mason’s handicap. We’d listen to Joe Hernandez’ call of the feature race on the radio or on weekends we’d look forward to a break from boxing, bad horror movies and jumping over barrels on ice skates to watch Gil Stratton at 4 pm with the feature race winner getting a beautiful blanket of flowers in the winner’s circle. We would keep track on number of winners and money won…I recall picking a lot of horses with Indian in the name. Also, a couple more hard knockers I remember are Snips N Snails and Sporting Goods, who loved the downhill course at Santa Anita.

Once my baseball career ended in college I saw horse racing as a means to be involved in professional sports. I began my horse racing career hand publishing (with the help of my brother), a Los Alamitos Quarter Horse trainer analysis in the early 1980s. I also worked with thoroughbred computer stat pioneer James Selvidge, author of Hold Your Horses. I began my career working at the race track by selling tip sheets for Warren Eve’s Quarter Horse Report during early bird to give his ace salesman George Johns at day off. Warren later fired me for recording stats in a notebook while I was sitting there!!! Rick Baedeker was running the Baedeker Guide at the night racing and he appreciated my application of statistics to horse racing and that led to 25 year friendship with Rick, who is former president of NTRA marketing, former president of Hollywood Park and currently is a lobbyist for Bay Meadows.

I started out by selling tip sheets and keeping stats for The Baedeker Guide, then becoming the first non-family member to produce the highly-regarded handicapping guide when Rick & his brother Bob produced the first horse racing replay show in So. California in the early 1980’s. I’ve worked as Publicity Director at Los Alamitos Quarter Horse & Harness, turf writer at Santa Anita & Hollywood Park. I got my dream job of newspaper handicapper for the Pomona Progress Bulletin & the Pasadena Star News, but had to quit the Star News when they wanted me to produce everything from the office without seeing a race…couldn’t believe that was good service to the public and luckily they hired Jack Karlic after I quit and let him work from the press box. Rick brought me on as program handicapper for Hollywood Park when R D Hubbard bought the Inglewood oval in 1991 and for the last 12 years I’ve been the Program Director at Hollywood Park.

I’ve lived on a horse ranch, walked hots at Del Mar, learned to jog harness horses – thanks to Tim Diliberto & Ross Croghan when I was publicity director at Los Al, plus bred and raced a couple of horses. I love the game and the challenge of putting all the pieces together to predict a winner.

I got the idea for Pace Pals when my young children were learning their states & capitols and multiplication tables with the help of Hall Of Fame basketball player Jerry Lucas’ (Dr. Memory) picture memory system. I have kept stats, baseball, horse racing etc since I was 7 or 8 years old and generally when I showed people the numbers and graphs (even gamblers who should want that kind of information when they bet) their eyes kind of glazed over and they’d feign interest and wish me good luck. Pace Pals speed up the handicapping process by putting basic information, pace, running style, post bias, trainer & jockey ratings in an easy to use visual format. Plus instead of blank stares when I show people stats, they smile when they see the Pace Pals.

Pace Pals intuitive handicapping graphics have appeared in the Hollywood Park program, Fairplex Park program, on pacepals.com and on TVG. Pace Pals were featured in the NTRA VIP suite at the 2007 Kentucky Derby.

Pace Pals can now be seen at Canterbury Downs in Minnesota and at Arapaphoe Park in Colorado. Look for them at your local race track soon! Pace Pals make horse racing fast, fun and easy to understand.