It’s Better For The Bettor Simulcast Wagering Offers Gamblers Races At Distant Tracks

Horse racing at a dog track.

The irony runs as deep as competition at the Kentucky Derby.

But there it was last May, a Washington horseman driving to the Coeur d’Alene Greyhound Park in Post Falls to watch his 5-year-old gelding - Spokane Charlie - run in Arizona.

That’s horse racing in the 1990s, the Sport of Kings going long to reach a segment of the betting public.

Thoroughbred racing is reaching out with simulcast wagering, in which gamblers place their bets and watch races on TV screens.

Idaho is one of many states allowing simulcast wagering; Washington one of the few that does not.

So thoroughbred owner Paul Gillespie of Veradale and his family made sure they were parked in front of a TV monitor at the greyhound park when their horses ran at Turf Paradise in Phoenix.

They drove 10 miles from their Valley home to watch the action more than 1,300 miles away. Spokane Charlie is trained and co-owned by Fred Hepton of Spokane.

When Gillespie’s horses ran at Turf Paradise, his daughter, Ann Brand, a sales assistant with the Spokane Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, traded lunch and break times for a quick trip to Post Falls.

“My sister and two brothers would all show up in different cars,” she said. “We didn’t have time to pick each other up.”

Turf Paradise is dark now - Spokane Charlie is home - but the greyhound park continues to carry every race from the finest tracks in the country.

It’s like Reno, only better, since sports books in Reno put a $600 maximum on what they’ll pay on exotic bets like exactas and trifectas. In Post Falls, there’s no limit.

This month, early birds show up in Post Falls for Belmont Park and Calder at 10 a.m. Ellis Park (Kentucky) comes on at noon. Pleasanton, a stop on the California fair circuit, usually gets going at 12:45 p.m., with Hollywood Park starting at 1. The closers on the program are Delta Downs (Louisiana) at 4:15 and the quarter horses from Los Alamitos, Calif., at 7:15.

The varied menu allows Greyhound Park to outlive the sport it was built for.

Even before dog racing was banned in Idaho this year, the sparkling clean facility near the state line had shifted some of its emphasis to simulcast wagering, both dog and horse racing. It is now leased by officials at the Les Bois Park thoroughbred track in Boise.

Greyhound Park has everything but slots, blackjack and, well, live greyhounds.

What hasn’t changed is the atmosphere. The park built a reputation for convenience and service with the dog crowd. It’s doing the same with horse-racing fans.

“They treat the customer well,” said Brand, former parimutuels manager at Playfair. “They present the sport right.”

Bettors feel $7 richer before they sit down.

There’s no charge for admission. Parking is free. Ice water is free. Scratch sheets are free, meaning you don’t have to buy a daily program. The only initial layout is $3 for the more-detailed Daily Racing Form.

As general manager Don Gross puts it, “Why would you charge anybody to watch TV?”

Fans come from Montana, Washington, British Columbia and Idaho, Gross said. The facility handles an average of $55,000 in bets a day, he said.

Some of it is paid back in make-your-whole-year numbers.

“One fellow out here the other day won $31,000 on a superfecta at Churchill Downs,” Gross said. “Another made $30,000 at the dog track in Houston.”

A superfecta winner picks the first four finishers in order of a particular race. Although $31,000 hits are rare, the opportunity to watch and wager on the best is a compelling challenge.

On Sunday, it was the $1 million Hollywood Gold Cup from Inglewood, Calif. Everybody from Hollywood Park to Greyhound Park overlooked Siphon, a 9-1 outsider who became only the eighth wire-to-wire winner of the Gold Cup, holding off Geri by a length.

Greyhound Park is the only game in town with Spokane’s Playfair Race Course closed at least through the summer.

Even Spokane horsemen who remain partial to live racing in Washington - gamblers who said they’d never go to the dogs - are finding their way to the TV monitors at Greyhound Park.

“We’re now a regional event,” Gross said. “We have 85 employees, almost all full time. That increased substantially when we brought in bingo on April 17. We’ve given back $75,000 (from bingo) to non-profits in the area and increased our job base by 30 people.”

The recovery of the dog track is pegged in part to Idaho’s simulcast wagering bill that allows “co-mingling,” meaning a bet at Post Falls is plugged directly into a huge wagering pool at the host track, such as Hollywood Park. Even a big bet placed in Post Falls doesn’t ripple the betting odds.

Variety is another plus. If it’s raining at Calder, another track is a channel change away.

There’s so much variety, in fact, that even the experienced player loses concentration bouncing from track to track. In a sport where information is power, channel surfing can thin the wallet.

But it does answer one of the sport’s repeated criticisms, that a race every half-hour is too slow for a society hurrying after results.

The hope of Brand and other horse players is that the area will eventually support both the off-track show at Post Falls, and the new Playfair Park if and when the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe is able to revive the Spokane facility.

Gross hopes for the best for all.

“We’re very pleased with the way it’s going,” he said. “We try to give the people what they want, hoping that when Washington state does go for outside simulcasting we’ll still be able to compete. One plus is our building. It’s not small or smoky. It’s open and spacious.”

The local betting public is pretty sharp, Gross said.

“There’s a term in this business called money room shift,” he says. “It’s money that goes out. Only a small percentage of our money goes elsewhere in the country. Much of it stays here.”

If a lot of people are cashing tickets - and it appears that they are - not everybody leaves ahead. But even the losers don’t necessarily leave unhappy.

One Spokane race fan, Mike Matthey, puts it this way: Losing is the cost of an ongoing education.

“The next best thing to winning,” Matthey says, “is losing.”

A day at the races has to count for something.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Color Photos