Jeff Siegel, once declared the World’s Greatest Handicapper, knew success was no sure thing when he was hired this year as morning-line oddsmaker at Del Mar and Santa Anita.
Handicapping races as a bettor requires trying to out-think the crowd, to find horses whose tote-board odds are more generous than they should be. Doing it as a morning-line maker requires trying to think like the crowd, to inform gamblers by predicting what the parimutuel odds will be. If you’ve spent most of your life mastering the former, it might be hard to adjust to the latter.
“I wasn’t 100% sure that I could do it,” Siegel said this week.
So far, so good.
Siegel’s lines have appeared in the program at Del Mar since the summer season began July 20, when he took over from Jon White, who retired at the end of the Santa Anita meeting. If Siegel is learning on the job and making a mistake here and there, his fans would say it’s OK.
On Sunday, in the seventh race, Siegel’s line made Bob’s Blue Moon the favorite at 3-1 but the horse wound up going off as the fifth choice at 8-1. Bob’s Blue Moon rallied to beat crowd favorite Lemon Sushi by a half-length. Strictly speaking, Siegel was wrong, because his morning line had the wrong favorite. But try telling that to fans who read the line to reflect Siegel’s assessment of the horses and collected $18.80 for every $2 bet to win.
The previous Sunday, in the second race, Siegel’s line listed Chromeflash as the 7-2 favorite after the scratch of 3-1 Afternoon Nap. Chromeflash went off at 11-1 and won by two lengths while crowd favorite No More Ding Dongs faded to sixth. Again, some fans might have laughed at the inaccurate morning line. But others were laughing all the way to a $24.80 payoff.
Those aren’t isolated examples. In the first three weeks of the Del Mar season, if you’d bet to win on every Siegel morning-line favorite who showed higher odds on the tote board, you’d have cashed tickets on 10 of 33 races and turned profits on six of 10 racing days. Based on $2 bets, those “overlays” produced $107.20 in payoffs on $66 wagered.
“I’ve got a lot of tweets and messages from people saying, ‘Keep up the good work on the overlays,’” Siegel said. “I don’t know, maybe that’s what they want. Maybe they want to find out where the good gambles are, and they’re thinking I’m making horses lower than they should be because I want to go against the grain.”
For Siegel, 73, making morning lines is the latest of many roles in horse racing.
He’s a lifelong fan of racing – along with UCLA football and basketball and most other Los Angeles-area teams – who remembers watching 1955 Kentucky Derby winner Swaps on TV. Siegel’s father took him to the track, but nobody in his family was involved in the sport.
After attending Fairfax High and covering sports for the campus newspaper at L.A. Valley College, Siegel studied radio and TV journalism at San Jose State, expecting that to be his career. He got a job with KLAC radio because he wanted to be a reporter. Also because he wanted to meet sportscaster Jim Healy.
Healy took a liking to Siegel and, knowing he was a racing fan, urged Hollywood Park owner Marje Everett to hire him.
“He said, ‘I got you a new job,’ ” Siegel remembered 50 years later. “I said, ‘I like this job.’ He said, ‘No, you’ll like the one I got you better. I got you a job in publicity at Hollywood Park.’
“That gave me a foot in the door that led to everything else.”
Siegel took advantage of his access to the backstretch to quiz trainers on how to watch races and workouts to spot equine talent and anticipate horses’ improvement.
“I very much believe (that) a horse is an athlete, the way they move, the way they run, the acceleration they give,” he said. “I think that’s an edge I have over people who just think of horses as a graph on a piece of paper. It’s not a big edge, but it’s an edge that put me over the top.”
Siegel took over Ernie Mason’s handicapping syndicate when Mason retired, making picks for papers that included the Daily News (then the Valley News), Pasadena Star-News and Orange County Register, and later the San Diego Union-Tribune and Los Angeles Times.
For trainers, the student became the teacher. It was Siegel who recommended trainer Gary Jones put in a $32,000 claim in 1979 for a 4-year-old filly who had yet to win above the allowance level. Wishing Well went on to win six stakes, including a Grade II, finished her career with earnings of more than $380,000, and become the dam of 1989 Kentucky Derby winner Sunday Silence.
Siegel applied his skills in other ways: As a horse owner, co-founding the general partnership stables Clover Racing and Team Valor. As publisher of Handicapper’s Report. As a handicapper and analyst on TV and websites.
The most admired handicappers admire Siegel.
Andrew Beyer, the Washington, D.C.-based racing writer and namesake of Beyer speed figures, wrote in his 1993 book “Beyer on Speed” that he consulted with Siegel before betting on Southern California tracks. Beyer recounted playing the races from Las Vegas on a day Siegel recommended six horses.
“Siegel’s selections went six for six,” Beyer wrote. “When I left town with a healthy profit that was largely the result of his brainpower, I was happy to hail him as the World’s Greatest Handicapper.”
It takes a first-rate handicapper to be a sharp morning-line maker. Fans at Southern California’s major thoroughbred tracks are lucky to have had some of the best, including Jeff Tufts, Russell Hudak and White.
And Siegel, even if he’s still adjusting to the role.
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With characteristic modesty, Siegel said that when the tote board flashes the first parimutuel odds for an upcoming race, “I’m terrified – where did I make a mistake on this one?”
“When I look at the tote board, and the odds are properly aligned with my morning line, it’s a great adrenaline rush,” he said. “I don’t even care who wins. I just want the odds to line up right.”
But pay attention when Siegel’s odds don’t line up with the crowd’s. So far at Del Mar, it could mean there’s a bet to be won.
Follow horse racing correspondent Kevin Modesti at X.com/KevinModesti.
