The Lady in Red: A story of a woman and bridge jumpers

There's a nice little historical piece up at DRF.com that I think you all may enjoy:

"The Lady in Red: A story of a woman and bridge jumpers"

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.

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.

Horseplayers couldn’t resist rooting for her, 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.

The article was written by TD Thornton, author of Not By a Long Shot: A Season at a Hard Luck Horse Track; which, like the article, is well worth the read.  At least, in my humble opinion.

Peace and Love,

Jimbo