Mark Paul - The Greatest Gambling Story Ever Told: A True Tale of Three Gamblers, The Kentucky Derby, and the Mexican Cartel

The Greatest Gambling Story Ever Told

A True Tale of Three Gamblers,
the Kentucky Derby, and the
Mexican Cartel

Mark Paul

Copyright 2020 by Mark Paul

All rights reserved.

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The Greatest Gambling Story Ever Told

A True Tale of Three Gamblers, the Kentucky Derby, and the Mexican Cartel

By Mark Paul

1. BIO000000 2. BIO026000 3. GAM004040

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-949642-28-5

Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-949642-29-2

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-949642-30-8

Cover design by Lewis Agrell and JW Robinson

Printed in the United States of America

Authority Publishing

11230 Gold Express Dr. #310-413

Gold River, CA 95670

800-877-1097

www.AuthorityPublishing.com

Dedication

To my wife, partner, and love of my life who always believes in me,

often for no apparent reason.

Authors Note

The Greatest Gambling Story Ever Told is the colorful story of a spectacular three-year-old female racehorse in the male dominated world of thoroughbred racing. The book is a dramatic narrative of an exciting and frightening time in my life. Its based on personal experiences leading up to and during the Kentucky Derby. Hundreds of hours of research allowed me to portray and re-create the lives and actual events that occurred around the gamblers and participants in the running of this race. Occasionally places, persons, timelines, and details were changed to re-create events that occurred over three decades ago, and to protect identities and privacy. There are elements of creative nonfiction in this work (conversations were recreated) but it is based on events I witnessed or researched.

Contents

Chapter 1
Long Legged Lady

May 5, 1984, Churchill Downs Racetrack, Kentucky

A girl with long red hair, perhaps eight years old, was sitting high atop her fathers shoulders, watching the horses load into the gate for the 110th running of the Kentucky Derby. They were standing in the packed grandstand at the stretch near the starting gate; nearly a quarter mile separated them and the finish line. She was holding a sign that read, Beat the Boys! Althea! She wanted to see a female horse win the prestigious race, something that a filly had accomplished only twice since 1875.

This filly, Althea, had drawn the dreaded rail post position. She was calm when she entered the gate. Althea was waiting behind the gate because 19 additional horses were still to be loaded into the starting gates, including another female. The other filly, Lifes Magic, shared the same trainer as Althea: D. Wayne Lukas. The betting public believed the two fillies had a real chance; they were the favorites at odds of only 2.8-1, coupled in the wagering together.

After the outside gate, number 20, was loaded, the starters bell rang and the gates sprung open!

The crowd of 126,000 fans roared as Althea broke just a bit slow, but recovered and frantically dug her hooves into the hard brown Kentucky soil, desperate to get in front of the other 19 charging horses. She was sprinting now, taking the lead running while on the inside part of the track near the white rail, past the fans, and into the first of the two long turns.

The red-haired girls father yelled, Altheas in front!

She smiled and shouted, Go girl! Go girl!

A horse named Swale, a colt, was the one most expected to battle the favored Althea, (at 3-1 odds), and he settled just off the speeding filly on the lead as they charged into the turn at nearly 40 mph. With the sound of 80 hooves pounding into the track, all horses were seeking the immortality of a Derby win for their trainers and owners.

Althea now opened up on Swale by one-and-a-half lengths into the first left-handed turn.

The 71-year-old trainer of Swale was Woody Stephens of Kentucky, and like many successful older men, he had lost his politically correct filter some years before. Just that morning he had yelled to Lukas, Dammit Wayne, keep your fillies out of my way.

Althea wont be in your way, Woody. Youll have to catch her if you can.

Youre wasting your time. Keep the girls running against girls.

Lukas had been the first trainer in history to enter two fillies in the same Derby. He had been mocked and criticized by other trainers, the media, and many racing fans, for doing so, despite how Althea had defeated the colts in three other major stakes races already in her short career. To win a Derby requires a different type of horsea horse that can race the classic distance of one-and-one-quarter miles and survive the long stretch run against the best horseflesh on the planet.

Just before the start of this race, a male fan yelled, Youre going to lose again Waynenext year bring a colt!

So far, in the 1984 Kentucky Derby, Lukas looked like a genius as Althea led the thundering pack into the backstretch. Hooves pounding, Swale and Althea were throwing back chunks of dirt into the faces of their nearest pursuers, nearly two lengths behind them. Swale began his attack on her outside right flank, challenging her for the lead. She felt his energy and dug in again, accelerating into the final turn, flatly refusing to yield to the larger colt on her outside. The huge raucous crowd had wagered $25,000,000 and the anticipated battle between the two betting favorites was on!

Now the red-haired girl could see the horses charging directly toward her position near the rail at the start of the stretch. Come on, Althea! You can do it, girl!

Swale was running easily under his champion jockey Laffit Pincay Jr. while Chris McCarron on Althea was furiously pumping his arms forward, urging the smaller filly to keep the battle going. She fought gamely to hold the second position as Swale rushed past, but the colts were making their ambitious stretch assaults now.

The other filly, Lifes Magic, was caught in a wall of horses and making no impact.

Pincay, one of the most physically powerful riders in history, urged Swale forward with his piston-like arms, matching in exact rhythm the colts giant strides as they surged away from the field.

Althea was spent from her early race speed. McCarron, feeling her fatigue beneath him, did not draw his whip. She lapsed to fifth, then 10th, then 15th, exhausted. At the wire, Althea beat only one horse that had been pulled up earlier in the race. She finished over 30 lengths behind the winning Swale and his celebrating trainer, Woody Stephens.