Red Sea

*You can lead a handicapper to the windows, but you can’t make him wager on the winner. How delightfully tragic.*

I've long subscribed to the belief that exclusive information is the currency of the wise, and knowledge… well, knowledge is the ledger by which true power is measured. Yet in the gilded catacombs of the parimutuel world, something unsettling has taken root. Over the past few years, I’ve watched the general horseplayer evolve — or rather, devolve. Once vigilant, studious, methodical creatures, they’ve become sluggish, distracted, fattened on convenience and dulled by repetition. The art, the chase, the *craft*… forgotten.

We live in an age of amnesia, my friend. Not the tragic kind caused by trauma or time, but the willful kind — a choice to forget, to not *know*. Most punters today wouldn't recognize the parimutuel system if it handed them a winning ticket wrapped in a red bow. They don’t study, they don’t dig, they don’t *want* to understand. They’ve mistaken data for wisdom. They believe the enemy is the CAW, the computer-assisted wagering syndicates, as if a nameless algorithm is robbing them of their birthright. But here’s the rub — the CAW doesn’t care who wins. It doesn’t feel, it doesn’t *know*. It simply bets numbers — blind, brute-force math — designed to grind, break even, and scoop rebates like a miser with a golden ladle.

No, the enemy isn't the machine. The enemy is apathy.

The game — this exquisite little puzzle of flesh and hooves and heart — has always belonged to three camps. The sharpies: dwindling, dying, ghosts in the grandstand. The insiders: elusive, half-whispers, always five steps ahead. And then… the masses. The public. They’ll bet on anything with a pulse — turtles, doves, or just cute nicknames. They don’t need information. They need action.

And yet, if you’re still reading this — truly reading — you're not one of *them*. You're a sharpie, or at least you aspire to be. Because the others? They already know it all. Just ask them. They're legends in their own minds, hanging invisible plaques in imaginary halls of fame.

But you… you might still be dangerous.

Yes… yes, you can still be dangerous — provided, of course, you’re willing to roll up your investigative trousers, adjust your monocle, and wade knee-deep through the grime and mystery of what the game truly offers.

You see, this isn’t about luck, no. Luck is a crutch, a bedtime story whispered to those who’ve abandoned the notion of control. No, this is about observation. Diligence. Having one eye open when everyone else is sleepwalking to the windows with their pockets turned inside out.

Case in point — we produced a pilot, quite humbly titled The Bullet Works. One of those little experiments we do when we’re feeling… generous. In it, we featured a precocious little filly, just a baby, clocking her works at the Thoroughbred Training Center. We watched her—really watched her—not through the lens of pedigree or trainer stats, but through that quiet, measured scrutiny that only true seekers employ.

Two weeks later, voilà — she wins, pays $14 and change, and suddenly the world wants to act surprised. The pundits? Completely lost. Fixated on the familiar, the obvious, the same old gospel they’ve been preaching since 1987. They failed to pick up a single clue, let alone dig for one. No shovels, no pails. No effort. Just blind faith in overexposed connections and the warm, fuzzy feeling of herd consensus.

Meanwhile, Gorrondo Beach — ah, yes, the chosen one, the public's darling — was paraded about like a Pegasus waiting to take flight. But here’s what we saw: she’d been striking herself behind. Hard. Bad enough her trainer had to slap patches on her hocks — imagine that, equine knee pads for a friction problem so fierce it bordered on self-destruction. And yet, no one noticed. Or worse, no one cared to.

The signs were there. Obvious, if you knew where — and how — to look. But instead, the pundits fawned. They cooed. They built temples of praise to a filly whose wings were frayed long before she reached the starting gate.

And so the real Pegasus emerged — Folk Song, the one we'd quietly penciled in weeks prior. A daylight winner. The kind of triumph that whispers to those tuned into the right frequency. The sharpies knew. The insiders knew. The rest? Dazed. Bewildered. Grasping for answers as if the racing gods themselves had played some cruel trick.

But it wasn’t a trick. It was discipline. It was imagination. It was work.

That, my friend, is why people lose. Not because they’re stupid, but because they’re uninspired. Because they believe that what worked yesterday is good enough for tomorrow. They cling to doctrine, follow pundits like Moses down the mountain, convinced every pick is carved in stone. But these so-called prophets?

They wouldn’t know a burning bush if it torched their tip sheets.

They lack imagination. And without imagination… you’ll never part the Red Sea.

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