The Lady In Red
Jan 6, 2014 0:39:10 GMT -5
Post by Jon on Jan 6, 2014 0:39:10 GMT -5
In case you missed this on DRF. Good read for a slow racing, too cold to venture out day!
The Lady in Red: A story of a woman and bridge jumpers
By T.D. Thornton
DRF
It was the war-weary summer of 1944 when a mysterious dark-haired pixie, barely 4-foot-10 in heels, asserted herself as a towering presence at the Rockingham Park wagering windows.
The petite stranger, perhaps in her 30s, fancied large show bets on heavy favorites in short fields. She arrived inconspicuously and placed her wagers discreetly – or as unobtrusively as possible considering that she tied up high-denomination windows by sliding fat stacks of hundreds across the counter until the race went off.
“Just keep punching that damn thing until the bell rings,” she would calmly instruct a favorite teller, always polite despite businesslike urgency. “And believe me, mister, I hope they start late.”
Almost always, the commanding favorites won. Almost always, the go-for-broke show bettor collected 10 cents on the dollar and slipped away quietly, leaving in her wake thousands of dollars of minus pools – an occurrence when the track pays out more money than it takes in to comply with minimum-payout laws.
At first, the only clues to her cryptic comings and goings were the five-digit flashes that flickered to life on the tote board. But by the end of the season, the demure heavy hitter had gained a fervent national following – and unwanted scrutiny from track officials, who were powerless to stop her pari-mutuel pillaging.
“Her acts are legal and perfectly within all natural and horse-track laws,” is how one columnist defended the lady plunger, framing her bold betting as an us-versus-them endeavor. “We wouldn’t know why, but we always get a chuckle out of seeing racetrack operators in a dither of this kind.”
Horseplayers couldn’t resist rooting for her, either, and were quick to swoon over the mystery woman who came to be known as the Lady in Red.
Had she been operating in the 21st century, this woman would no doubt have acquired a different nickname: Today, we would call her a “bridge jumper,” racetrack slang for a bettor who risks a lot to win a little on a perceived “sure thing,” most often in the form of a show bet. To lose such a wager is said to be so devastating that the bettor feels like jumping off the nearest bridge.
In fact, had the Lady in Red been strafing show pools in 2014, the betting public would be following her for reasons unrelated to human interest: Handicappers today use social media and the Internet to keep tabs on show-pool plungers for the purpose of wagering against them, banking on upsets that trigger outsized windfalls for everyone but the bridge jumpers.
But that’s getting ahead of the story by 70 years.
In the 1940s, the term “bridge jumper” wasn’t even in vogue yet. This was the World War II decade, when racing was only allowed to continue because it functioned as a public diversion. Portions of the handle were donated to the war effort, and making a bet was billed as patriotic.
Racetracks were full of vibrant characters, and press boxes were overflowing with turf writers who crafted tales to buoy the collective spirit of Americans.
The woman’s nickname stemmed from her reportedly wearing a scarlet dress or a crimson coat, but fans from this era also would have recognized “Lady in Red” as the moniker attributed to the dame who had turned in gangster John Dillinger.
According to the aura of mysticism, the Lady in Red at Rock was a “lone wolfess” who operated strictly by herself. Or she was part of a massive betting syndicate. Or she worked with a partner who helped cash winning tickets and make a fast getaway. In short, the Lady in Red was whoever or whatever the public wanted her to be.
Word had it that the Lady started the summer of ’44 with a $500 bankroll and by August had hit an implausible 110 show bets in a row. The Rock was rampant with gossip that she was a “Robin Hood” horseplayer, taking money from the track’s rich coffers to give to the poor, which emboldened her image. But columnist John Lardner, the son of master storyteller Ring, set this rumor straight, tongue firmly in cheek: “This, as I say, is a wishful point of view, for there is nothing in the reports ... to indicate that the poor of [the] community have got anything more out of the Lady in Red than the U.S. government has. And the government, as we went to press, was pursuing ladies in red coats, hats, shoes, or earmuffs up every alleyway in New England.”
There was even some question over whether the Lady wore red at all.
“She’s only worn red twice,” snapped an exasperated William Jubb, director of pari-mutuels at the Rock, who was mum when asked to disclose what his detectives had learned by tailing the woman. “All I can say is, she is very small.”
And then there was this: The St. Petersburg Evening Independent reported that the Lady in Red had a most unusual way of taking care of the clerks who processed her big bets.
“Although [she] has yet to tip a pari-mutuel teller or cashier, she has been known to reward a clerk at the $100 window with a tasty fruit cake after one of her spectacular wagering splurges.”
Show plunging to the extreme
Before the Lady in Red name stuck, they called her Chicago Nellie. This nickname alluded to her wagering style rather than her city of origin: In the 1920s, “Chicago” Tom O’Brien had been a high-profile gambler who allegedly earned millions by limiting his action to 30 selective show bets a year.
By the 1940s, any horseplayer with a strategy based on show wagering was said to be a practitioner of the “Chicago system.”
Regardless of the name, the margin has always been slim for bridge jumpers: If the minimum payoff is a dime on the dollar, you need to be right more than nine times out of 10 to strike a profit. If the minimum is a nickel, the break-even point rises to 95 percent.
On Aug. 11, 1944, the Lady in Red backed Star Boarder at 1-2. The favorite roared into the Rock stretch leading by five lengths, took a bad step, and failed to finish. “On that occasion she destroyed tickets valued at $4,600,” The New York Times reported.
After a brief break, the Lady was back in action.
“Another highlight ... proved to be the reappearance of the mysterious woman bettor who has been playing havoc with the Rock show pools,” The Boston Globe reported Oct. 14. “In the five-horse feature race she nonchalantly tossed $15,000 through the $100 window on Smart Bet to show.”
The favorite prevailed, and “this huge wager threw the show pool into the minus column.”
Two days later, she had a $10,000 fright when 3-10 Side Arm “threatened to fall to pieces,” the Globe explained. “Only the smashing whip ride of Georgie McMullen saved the day for the plunging lady.”
The crimson-clad miss was spotted cashing tickets on War Jeep at Jamaica and Texas Sandman at Narragansett Park. The Times reported that she “has caught the fancy of the nation,” noting “hundreds of letters from various parts of the country seeking her identity.”
On Oct. 26, an enterprising United Press writer finally sleuthed out who she was.
“The ‘Lady in Red,’ who has reportedly bet some $250,000 at Rockingham Park in Salem, N.H., this season, was identified tonight as Mrs. Donata Mercuri of Brighton [Mass.],” began the wire-service report that ran nationwide. “[She] said she never picked a horse in her life but depended on her husband’s selections.”
The husband, Genesio, owned a bakery in Boston. “My wife bought the tickets,” he explained, “because I didn’t have the nerve to go and buy so much on one horse at the $100 window and I figured she was my lucky charm.”
Full story:
www.drf.com/news/lady-red-story-woman-and-bridge-jumpers
The Lady in Red: A story of a woman and bridge jumpers
By T.D. Thornton
DRF
It was the war-weary summer of 1944 when a mysterious dark-haired pixie, barely 4-foot-10 in heels, asserted herself as a towering presence at the Rockingham Park wagering windows.
The petite stranger, perhaps in her 30s, fancied large show bets on heavy favorites in short fields. She arrived inconspicuously and placed her wagers discreetly – or as unobtrusively as possible considering that she tied up high-denomination windows by sliding fat stacks of hundreds across the counter until the race went off.
“Just keep punching that damn thing until the bell rings,” she would calmly instruct a favorite teller, always polite despite businesslike urgency. “And believe me, mister, I hope they start late.”
Almost always, the commanding favorites won. Almost always, the go-for-broke show bettor collected 10 cents on the dollar and slipped away quietly, leaving in her wake thousands of dollars of minus pools – an occurrence when the track pays out more money than it takes in to comply with minimum-payout laws.
At first, the only clues to her cryptic comings and goings were the five-digit flashes that flickered to life on the tote board. But by the end of the season, the demure heavy hitter had gained a fervent national following – and unwanted scrutiny from track officials, who were powerless to stop her pari-mutuel pillaging.
“Her acts are legal and perfectly within all natural and horse-track laws,” is how one columnist defended the lady plunger, framing her bold betting as an us-versus-them endeavor. “We wouldn’t know why, but we always get a chuckle out of seeing racetrack operators in a dither of this kind.”
Horseplayers couldn’t resist rooting for her, either, and were quick to swoon over the mystery woman who came to be known as the Lady in Red.
Had she been operating in the 21st century, this woman would no doubt have acquired a different nickname: Today, we would call her a “bridge jumper,” racetrack slang for a bettor who risks a lot to win a little on a perceived “sure thing,” most often in the form of a show bet. To lose such a wager is said to be so devastating that the bettor feels like jumping off the nearest bridge.
In fact, had the Lady in Red been strafing show pools in 2014, the betting public would be following her for reasons unrelated to human interest: Handicappers today use social media and the Internet to keep tabs on show-pool plungers for the purpose of wagering against them, banking on upsets that trigger outsized windfalls for everyone but the bridge jumpers.
But that’s getting ahead of the story by 70 years.
In the 1940s, the term “bridge jumper” wasn’t even in vogue yet. This was the World War II decade, when racing was only allowed to continue because it functioned as a public diversion. Portions of the handle were donated to the war effort, and making a bet was billed as patriotic.
Racetracks were full of vibrant characters, and press boxes were overflowing with turf writers who crafted tales to buoy the collective spirit of Americans.
The woman’s nickname stemmed from her reportedly wearing a scarlet dress or a crimson coat, but fans from this era also would have recognized “Lady in Red” as the moniker attributed to the dame who had turned in gangster John Dillinger.
According to the aura of mysticism, the Lady in Red at Rock was a “lone wolfess” who operated strictly by herself. Or she was part of a massive betting syndicate. Or she worked with a partner who helped cash winning tickets and make a fast getaway. In short, the Lady in Red was whoever or whatever the public wanted her to be.
Word had it that the Lady started the summer of ’44 with a $500 bankroll and by August had hit an implausible 110 show bets in a row. The Rock was rampant with gossip that she was a “Robin Hood” horseplayer, taking money from the track’s rich coffers to give to the poor, which emboldened her image. But columnist John Lardner, the son of master storyteller Ring, set this rumor straight, tongue firmly in cheek: “This, as I say, is a wishful point of view, for there is nothing in the reports ... to indicate that the poor of [the] community have got anything more out of the Lady in Red than the U.S. government has. And the government, as we went to press, was pursuing ladies in red coats, hats, shoes, or earmuffs up every alleyway in New England.”
There was even some question over whether the Lady wore red at all.
“She’s only worn red twice,” snapped an exasperated William Jubb, director of pari-mutuels at the Rock, who was mum when asked to disclose what his detectives had learned by tailing the woman. “All I can say is, she is very small.”
And then there was this: The St. Petersburg Evening Independent reported that the Lady in Red had a most unusual way of taking care of the clerks who processed her big bets.
“Although [she] has yet to tip a pari-mutuel teller or cashier, she has been known to reward a clerk at the $100 window with a tasty fruit cake after one of her spectacular wagering splurges.”
Show plunging to the extreme
Before the Lady in Red name stuck, they called her Chicago Nellie. This nickname alluded to her wagering style rather than her city of origin: In the 1920s, “Chicago” Tom O’Brien had been a high-profile gambler who allegedly earned millions by limiting his action to 30 selective show bets a year.
By the 1940s, any horseplayer with a strategy based on show wagering was said to be a practitioner of the “Chicago system.”
Regardless of the name, the margin has always been slim for bridge jumpers: If the minimum payoff is a dime on the dollar, you need to be right more than nine times out of 10 to strike a profit. If the minimum is a nickel, the break-even point rises to 95 percent.
On Aug. 11, 1944, the Lady in Red backed Star Boarder at 1-2. The favorite roared into the Rock stretch leading by five lengths, took a bad step, and failed to finish. “On that occasion she destroyed tickets valued at $4,600,” The New York Times reported.
After a brief break, the Lady was back in action.
“Another highlight ... proved to be the reappearance of the mysterious woman bettor who has been playing havoc with the Rock show pools,” The Boston Globe reported Oct. 14. “In the five-horse feature race she nonchalantly tossed $15,000 through the $100 window on Smart Bet to show.”
The favorite prevailed, and “this huge wager threw the show pool into the minus column.”
Two days later, she had a $10,000 fright when 3-10 Side Arm “threatened to fall to pieces,” the Globe explained. “Only the smashing whip ride of Georgie McMullen saved the day for the plunging lady.”
The crimson-clad miss was spotted cashing tickets on War Jeep at Jamaica and Texas Sandman at Narragansett Park. The Times reported that she “has caught the fancy of the nation,” noting “hundreds of letters from various parts of the country seeking her identity.”
On Oct. 26, an enterprising United Press writer finally sleuthed out who she was.
“The ‘Lady in Red,’ who has reportedly bet some $250,000 at Rockingham Park in Salem, N.H., this season, was identified tonight as Mrs. Donata Mercuri of Brighton [Mass.],” began the wire-service report that ran nationwide. “[She] said she never picked a horse in her life but depended on her husband’s selections.”
The husband, Genesio, owned a bakery in Boston. “My wife bought the tickets,” he explained, “because I didn’t have the nerve to go and buy so much on one horse at the $100 window and I figured she was my lucky charm.”
Full story:
www.drf.com/news/lady-red-story-woman-and-bridge-jumpers