Getting Rich - The Betting Pool Geniuses

10/13/2008

1. If you happen to be a brand new horse show reporter or photographer having a hard time making a living in this strange new world, here are some recommendations from an ancient mariner. First, be patient with the pay scale, which comes with the territory. If you work like a diligent beaver for a few years (or decades) your income as a skilled professional in this sport could eventually rise to the minimum wage level for laborers as set by the United States government.

(Although, of course, you may starve to death by then. In which case you won’t have to worry about making a living anymore).

2. It’s tough out there, so be tough. Don’t be intimidated as a newcomer in an old world. Demand your props. As an example, in an indoor arena, where the good shooting spots for the photographers are at a premium, learn the skill of elbowing, bumping, pushing and shoving the veterans out of their favored locations, then stand in their line of fire so that their best shots are the back of your neck, while you are getting beauties of Beezie Patton and Meredith Michaels Beerbaum.

(Remember to bring pain killers. Whatever gets plunged into your behind, whether it’s a fist or a Swiss Army knife, grin and bear it, you’re the one who will be letting the Chronicle, Dressage Today, and Sidelines know that you have the great shots).

Same goes for the beginning reporter. It’s hard to think up interesting things to write, as I can attest, so, as we say in the music recording business, just go ahead and cover the articles of such big league equestrian reporters as Nancy Jaffer and Pamela Young. If they get annoyed at the theft, that’s their problem, not yours.

(Though, if I were you, I would get lessons in tiger (tigress?) fighting.)

3, Third, and most crucial and where you can get astonishingly rich, win the Press Room betting pools that spring up at the major equestrian events of world, such as the Olympics, the Spruce Meadows Masters, Aachen in Germany, or (ahem!) the 2009 Rolex FEI World Cup Finals of both Jumping and Dressage at Las Vegas this coming April, presented by Las Vegas Events with the best sponsor in the game and featuring the greatest horses and riders in the sport performing at their very best at the legendary Thomas & Mack Arena in the Entertainment Capital of the World, where some tickets are still available, but going fast. Whew! Made it!

Getting Rich
Where was I? The betting pool. Look, forget about these election promises that “they” intend to take the money away from the rich people and give it to you. I think you get 345 billion as your share (or maybe it’s trillion, I’m not sure) which is very nice. But the problem is that then you become the rich person, so they take it away from you and give it back to the original holder, who is now the poor person, and back and forth, until finally they just give up and give it as a grant to the Federal Government’s new “Pig Lipstick Research Program” with laboratories in all 50 states, which will probably win a Nobel prize for whoever is vice president at the time..

Look, guys and dolls, getting real, your assignment, should you decide to accept, is to win the betting pool at a big horse show. This, be assured, is real, live money, a veritable gold mine. I’ve seen the Sunday when the pot has soared as high as twenty or thirty or even fifty dollars to the winner! A week’s salary in one fell swoop! Enough for the expensive hotel version of a Carl’s Junior hamburg! Enough for a night of jubilation, not just a beer in the Bronx, but a Becks or Bohemian at a Bustling Bar in Berlin, Bologna, Barcelona, or Bakersfield, even if you are paying in euros!

(Bakersfield? Oh, well, whatever.)

Now the question is how do you guarantee that you are going to win that super prize with all the competition from veteran reporters. That’s simple. You bet on those horses which are going to win!

And just how do you decide which horses are going to win? Easy. The champion, the best Winner Picker in the worldwide sport of show jumping will tell you how to do it. And who is the very best Winner Picker in the game, pray tell?

Frankly, it is shameful. Every male person and half the female persons in the horse world, notoriously including such celebrities as World Cup inventor Max Ammann from Switzerland, who is perhaps the second best Winner Picker, will tell you with a straight face and a shocking lack of modesty that they are the best and smartest Winner Picker there has ever been.

And just who is the actual genuine best Winner Picker? That’s the easiest question of them all. It’s me, of course, (or is it I?) no brag, just fact, and in all modesty, and I am in such a good mood today that I just may go ahead and tell you exactly how to do it, how to win the money at you next big international show, using the just concluded Hong Kong Olympics as our stage. You will be amazed how simple and how logical it is. Ready?

Whoops, just ran out of space. The answer must wait until the next issue. I do promise you, seriously, that I will tell it straight. When you have read it, and if you follow the trail, you will be a good bet to win the big bet at the next big show.

(What is that grumbling noise I hear out there, about why didn’t I just go ahead and do it now? At least I prefer that to, “Who cares.” See you then?) 

John Q.