Horse Racing

Fun fact: Horse Racing is popular. I'd say it's more popular than track and field and certainly more popular than cross country.

I believe one of the primary reasons is gambling! Who doesn't love gambling? (For the record I stole this from Nick Symmonds).

So I have an idea that I think might be fun and feel free to tell me I'm stupid.

I'm thinking we set up a betting league (USING NO REAL MONEY) here on the blog just for fun to add a little spice to the races and incentivize people to get a little more involved.

Here's how I see it working, I post some odds before the big invites. Viewers like you can then comment your bet(s) below and I will keep track of the imaginary money everyone has won over the course of the season. We can then see if you guys as betters can make more money than me as the odds maker.

So it's kinda a you vs me challenge as well.

Here would be a couple ground rules.

1. When you make a bet I would prefer for you to write your name or some type of code name with your bet so that I can keep track of how everyone does. I will take anonymous bets if they are made, but you would get no glory in being correct (I will however count it as lost money for me in the interest of fairness)

2. I will always post odds for "the field". If you bet the field, if anyone wins who isn't one of the people I have explicitly given odds for, you win. It doesn't matter who it is or who you think it will be (although feel free to comment who you think it will be for fun).

3. I just want to establish this won't be real money one more time. Not trying to start an illegal underground gambling ring here. It's just for fun. But because it's not real money and I don't feel like doing complicated math, the min bet is 1 dollar and the max bet is 100.

4. This applies only to PA runners. The top PA runner/team in the field is the winner and the odds only apply to the winner. So hypothetically say Paul Short results were some NJ kid, Abert and then Molino only the people who bet on Abert would get the pay out and no one else would.

If you have any questions let me know. Remember this is just supposed to be fun, if people are offended by this idea, I will pull the plug but I feel like it's pretty much the same as when I make predictions so hopefully no ones feelings get hurt.

Here are the Paul Short odds:
C. Abert 2:1
G. Molino 5:2
Ja. Hoey 3:1
P. Power 4:1
N. Dahl 9:1
B. Szuhaj 15:1
A. Marston 20:1 (I don't think he's coming so I'm giving you good odds here)
The Field 30:1

Malvern Prep 3:2
GFS 8:1
Easton 9:1
Parkland 12:1
Cumberland Valley 12:1
The Field 25:1

Plus some fun prop bets
Winning time under 15:30, 4:1
10 guys sub 16 or more, 12:1
Out of State Finisher in the top 5, 3:1
Out of State Team Champion, 7:1
Sub 15, 30:1

Feel free to bet on as much or as little as you'd like. Give me your feed back on how you feel about this idea as well.

And As my dad says, don't bet on the ponies.