Working remotely became essential as the world struggled through the COVID epidemic. Humans adapted through that period and once it was over many continued to operate from a distance. Some years later, a portion of offices have gone back to “normal” while others have closed with all employees working from home or any other comfortable environment. For me it’s impossible to think of what could have been lost had an epidemic struck during the early years I first started working at a small office in Great Neck, New York that housed a racing publication then known as Sports Eye. Just a fan of harness racing at the time and fortunate enough to know one person employed by the publication, the entry-level job would give me access to a wide range of minds that otherwise could have been hard to find. Sure, there were plenty of opinions to be garnered from attending a racetrack on a nightly basis, but most people were focused on picking a winner and getting on line to make wagers. There wasn’t much time to share what dynamics they utilized in making their selections. In the offices at Sports Eye co-workers would often discuss races they saw the previous evening, and most times unearth information that would never be readily available on the program the following week. Learned almost on the first day of employment was how cherished little nuggets of information was to most everyone in the building. To understand that those in the know had a decisive advantage over those that didn’t was critical in discovering horses that would go off as longshots in the weeks ahead. Sure, there were those in the building that wanted to have the most winners on a card no matter what the payoffs, and those that were “spot” players who were more focused on what could be perceived as “value” plays. The value of being in the company of varied opinions and betting strategies would have been impossible to garner had this group been working remotely and not interacting in person as we were lucky enough to be back in the day. Most interesting in those early days for me was just how different gamblers could be in their own personal theories or betting strategies. There were some that painstakingly mused through the program spending hours trying to break down every facet of the data to make a reasoned decision. At times the effort would be compromised by deadlines, with the newspaper finalized to go to print and selections needing to be wrapped up. Then there were others that scanned the building asking nearly everyone in attendance their own opinions of a particular race as if they needed a consensus to arrive at a winning wager. The conversations would always begin with the phrase: “What do you like about that horse?” The answers that followed would vary based on the handicappers own personal views. The reveal at times would find a different angle to pursue at best and something to ignore at worst. Not everyone shared the same mindset when it came to handicapping and to be surrounded by those with stark differences of opinion helped shape a gambling philosophy. There were notable heated discussions as ego often played a major part in the battle for handicapping supremacy amongst a group of passionate players. There were Damon Runyan-type characters with stories to tell and angles to pursue that bordered on illegal. Jack Rubin, the newspaper’s editor at the time, was a bit older than most of us and his stories covered the years before we were of legal age to wager. Mr. Rubin was always asking questions and miraculously to me weaving stories into the pages of Sports Eye from just a few tidbits of information. A gambler in the truest sense, Mr. Rubin seemed to have a passion of trying to beat the bookmaker (the only avenue to place a bet off track at the time) by any means possible. What that meant was if you could place a wager on a race after the race had begun or finished and the bookmaker took the bet unaware of the time of the race, you could make a score. To succeed you would have to have a bookmaker that didn’t record the time or had a watch that was a minute or two off. Mr. Rubin had access to press boxes in the local area and often placed calls to Sports Eye employees at the track while simultaneously on another phone with his bookmaker. Mark Richman, a friend who lived on the same block as I did in Brooklyn, got me the job with Sports Eye and was their top handicapper. He studied the program intently and was disciplined in his approach. Mr. Richman watched races with purpose and combined his handicapping skills with impeccable visuals to formulate his selections. Before getting his actual name in the publication as the leading handicapper he went under the name “Misha Goss,” a Yiddish-term for craziness. Sports Eye followers sent in hate mail when Mr. Richman replaced Misha Goss, displeased that their favorite handicapper had been replaced. ► Sign up for our FREE DRF Harness Digest Newsletter While Mr. Rubin was looking for questionable angles to swindle bookmakers, Mr. Richman was looking for betting angles that would yield high payoffs and set up “big score” possibilities. Initially he would tell me that he had a “system” horse and share it but was too secretive to explain how he arrived at the horse. A series of double-digit winners would soon follow, and the news would spread around the building with others asking almost daily if Mr. Richman’s system had revealed another longshot play. One early evening Mr. Richman found a system horse, but it was racing at Liberty Bell Park near Philadelphia. A weekday excursion to the Philadelphia area track would be impossible, leaving Mr. Richman only the hope that his bookmaker would take a wager on an out-of-town track. The system horse was in the second race at Liberty Bell and Mr. Richman reached the bookmaker with enough time to place his wager. In the middle of his conversation, Mr. Richman was interrupted by Mr. Rubin who shouted across the room, “Mark, use the two horse in the first race.” Mr. Richman was not playing daily doubles and he noted that right back to Mr. Rubin. “Just play the double with the two,” Mr. Rubin said again. Mr. Richman looked down at his program quickly at the number two horse in the first race at Liberty Bell and then shot back, “Jack I can’t play a horse like that.” That said, Mr. Richman concluded his conversation with the bookmaker and hung up the phone. At that point Mr. Rubin explained to Mr. Richman that the number two horse had already won the first race and he had missed out on the chance to past-post the bookmaker, infuriating Mr. Rubin at the time. It was just one of many of the office conversations that took place, but it taught me something over the long run. Mr. Richman’s virtue was that he listened to his own opinion first and foremost when making wagers. Regardless of the circumstances he trusted himself and wouldn’t be swayed by other views. On this occasion he was unaware that it was not Mr. Rubin’s selection but an actual winner. Eventually Mr. Richman did enlighten me with the details of his “system” that proved extremely valuable to me as one of the better lessons learned in the office.