Backyard fan misses Pick 6 score, by a nose
That shouting you heard from the vicinity of Saratoga Race Course just before 7 p.m. on Sunday night?
That was Joe Appelbaum, longtime backyard denizen, screaming at one of the
TVs as he rooted home the eight horse, Cookie
Crisp, on the lead heading to the wire under jockey Kendrick Carmouche.
Appelbaum was live to five horses in the last leg of the Pick 6, which included a double-carryover of $209,000 because the wager hadn’t been hit in the first two days of this year’s race meeting. With three of those horses, he and his partner held the only winning ticket.
And he thought they might have been home free...until No. 12 Major Force and Irad Ortiz Jr. dashed up the outside. Cookie Crisp was second by an agonizing nose, “nailed in the very last stride,” according to the official chart of the race.
Also nailed in the very last
stride was Appelbaum’s winning ticket, which would have paid a little more than $577,000, the proverbial life-changing score.
“It’s why we play,” said Appelbaum on Monday morning, still hoarse from the day before. “The takedown, the big double-carryover in Saratoga, scooping the pool, and we had the opportunity to do that. This is clearly about the money, but it’s also about more than that.”
Appelbaum did pick up five consolation payouts of $2,500 for picking five of six winners in the sequence, which more than covered his $3,300 Pick 6 ticket. But despite their name, they did little to console him.
In 2001, sitting in pretty much the same backyard spot that he was in on Sunday, Appelbaum hit his first Pick 6, on a ticket with a bunch of his friends. They cashed for around $109,000, including conso tickets. Appelbaum, then a college football coach, used his share to claim a horse with some friends.
“That launched me into the racing business,” he said.
Now, he’s fully immersed in it. With Carlos Morales, he established Off The Hook, a successful pinhooking operation, and he has recently expanded their breeding interests, focusing on New York-breds. He and Morales have about 20 mares at Irish Century Hill Farm and Song Hill Farm, both in Stillwater.
He serves on the board of directors of the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association, focusing on what he calls the “workers’ compensation predicament” at New York’s racetracks.
“Workmen’s comp is incredibly expensive,” he said. “Some of that is because racing is a dangerous profession, and some is the result of the overall workers’ compensation situation in New York State, which is difficult for many small businesses. This is about taking care of people: exercise riders, grooms, hotwalkers, jockeys.”
He is also on the board of New York State’s Jockey Injury Compensation Fund, a private insurance corporation set up to manage the workers’ compensation needs of exercise riders and jockeys.
But despite all those commitments, Appelbaum finds the time to contribute to the health of the racing industry in another crucial way: at the windows. Last year, he won the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge, bringing home $364,000 when he hit a $1,000 exacta bet of Arrogate over California Chrome in the Classic.
Though he described himself as “crushed” on Sunday afternoon, by Monday morning he was able to laugh — a little — and get right back to handicapping.
“After a night’s sleep, I feel better. In 20 years, I’ll be the guy in the backyard, still talking about it,” he said.
If there’s any silver lining to his loss, it’s that no one else had it, either, creating a $577,107 carryover into Monday’s card. And yes, Appelbaum will be playing.
“For sure,” he said. “I’m firing in.”