Without fail you can remember every bad beat with laser-like precision. Winners are sweet, but the losses are like a bad taste in your mouth you can’t get rid of. –  We’ve all had them and hopefully, we’ll have plenty of stories telling tales of the big win.

You’ll never forget your first:

No truer words were ever spoken. You never forget even if you wanted to try. It’s like looking down and seeing that panda bear tattoo on your leg from a night long ago at Daytona Beach. But, I digress. Here’s a couple I’ll never forget.

I took $100 to the track with me for the marquee day at Latonia Race Course. – Big races and big money awaited, and the seasonal drink was ice-cold over a mound of mixed fruit. Good times were just around the corner. – I had been close all day but no big score on my dance card. I had never lost a hundred bucks ever and it was getting close.

I loved a horse in the last race by the name of Tiger Man. – Jesse Garcia was aboard and was (7-2) on the board not budging. – Well, I had $20 bucks to my name and it was the only thing that stood in the way of my big score. I wasn’t going to lose $100; I took my key horse and used him over everyone in the race except some 60-1 shot. He had no shot and was ridden by a low percentage rider. – Well, as Tiger Man drew off to a huge lead the teletimer was showing a new track record was only a 16th away. The rest of the field was super tired going a route of ground and started to bunch up like a heard of cows. – Then as my winning runner scored I looked back at the field hoping for a good price. Well, I got one alright. It was the 60-1 shot splitting tired horses to finish the exacta. – I wasn’t mad as I still had my $2 and hadn’t broken my $100 loss rule. – That was until I saw the exacta paid $502.00. – Scared money never wins.

My horse was running at Hoosier Park. Just as a time marker, they still ran Thoroughbreds on the 7/8th’s track at that time. – Our horse was ready but had some feet problems. But, we were pretty confident we’d win after shipping in from Kentucky facing better runners. – I had a couple hundred in my pocket and like every owner were ready to take the plunge.

We were on the front side after checking on our million-dollar cheap claimer. We were 90 proof and ready to get our picture taken. – Alex Birzer was aboard State Budget that evening; ready to give an academy award ride to the winner’s circle.

I started capping with our gelding on top. – I had won about $150 prior and had plenty of cash to fire. – I used him on top of three and all, on top of five, six, and some single tickets. I had bet almost $300 and was ready to watch the big show. – When we went to the paddock our trainer was an older gent who didn’t speak much. I wanted the instructions given like a plan. – The old saying about riders and instructions; ” Good ones don’t need it and bad ones won’t heed it.” – But this young rider had a look in his eye and absorbed every word like a novel.

Mr. Birzer rode him as planned. At the 3/8th’s pole, he tipped off the rail and came moving like a good thing! He won by 5 widening lengths. – After jumping and kissing, we started to look at our tickets. My buddy had won $400 as I looked through a bundle of trifecta tickets. – As I dropped a heap of expensive stationery onto the floor. I came up empty except for $20 to win as he paid $20 to win. Not bad, but if I would have used my horse on top of all-all for $1; I would have cashed for over $22,000. – It was a good ride home laughing and celebrating. But, when I look back to the big night, it could have been much sweeter. – But hey, we won!