World Series | Horse Racing Free Tips

Jayson Werth Hits It Out of the Park with Dornoch

Plagued by injuries and getting up there in age, Jayson Werth announced his retirement from baseball on June 28, 2018. He finished with 229 career home runs, was an All-Star in 2009 and won a World Series in 2008 with the Philadelphia Phillies. It had been a great run, but when it was over Werth wasn't exactly ready to move on. He never lost the feelings that baseball gave him, the excitement, the ups and downs, the camaraderie with his teammates and the pride that comes with knowing that you have succeeded at the highest level.

There was golf but he needed something else. And in horse racing Jayson Werth has found exactly what he was looking for. Running under the name of Two Eight Racing (Werth wore number 28 during his playing days), the 44-year-old native of Springfield, Illinois has enjoyed remarkable early success. Involved in the sport only since 2021, Werth could be on his way to the GI Kentucky Derby. He is the co-owner of Dornoch (Good Magic), the winner of the GII Fountain of Youth S., as well as recent maiden winner Drip (Good Magic), who will be out to pick up Derby points in this Saturday's GII Tampa Bay Derby. Then there's R Calli Kim (Revolutionary), who won the GIII Very One S., which was part of the Fountain of Youth card.

“On some level, horse racing has filled a really large void in my life that has been created by my retiring from baseball,” he said. “Horse racing picked up where baseball left off. Its's a great industry for me to be in. Professional baseball, when you do it for 22 years, it takes over your whole life. My wife has a sign in the kitchen that says 'We interrupt this family for baseball season.' Then it's over and you think 'what do I do now?'

Werth lived near a Standardbred farm when he was growing up and befriended the owner and helped out with the horses, something that he enjoyed. But his family moved when he was 13 and Werth would soon be immersed in baseball. He didn't have time for anything else.

He soon found out that the passion he had for horses when he was young had never disappeared. Werth began playing golf with Richard Averill, who runs under the name of Averill Racing, and the owner introduced him to Thoroughbred racing.

Dornoch after winning the Fountain of Youth | Ryan Thompson

“I started picking Richard's brain and then partnered with him on some horses,” Werth said. “Racing became a passion and a love really fast for me. It started out with me thinking this is fun, let's claim this horse for $8,000. But I found out that's like playing in the minor leagues. It's not where you want to be.”

When asked to compare the feeling of winning a big race like the Fountain of Youth with his accomplishments in baseball, Werth said the biggest difference is that when it comes to racing he is a nervous wreck.

“I never got nervous playing sports,” he said. “Even before big games, the morning of, the day of, I never felt pressure or nervous. I was very comfortable, very calm. Horse racing has been the exact opposite. I get sick to my stomach before a race. I'm experiencing emotions I never knew existed. The winning and losing when it comes to racing is very comparable to winning in the divisional series, winning in the World Series. Having success or failure in racing, that feels very familiar to me. It's the lead-up into the race that gives me panic attacks.”

Dornoch may be his best horse, but he is most passionate about R Calli Kim. After a 55-week layoff, she came back in July and won a $35,000 claimer at Saratoga. That began a four-race win streak that included a victory in the GIII Long Island S. After finishing second in the GIII La Prevoyante S. she returned to the winner's circle in the The Very One.

“She got hurt and then didn't run for a whole year,” he said. “We thought she was done racing and then all of a sudden, she was doing really well and we sent her back to (trainer) Brendan (Walsh) and she has won six of seven. She's such a great horse, so sweet and nice. After my wife, she's my favorite girl in the whole world.”

Werth has been in the sport for just a little over three years and already has a GII Remsen S. winner, a Fountain of Youth winner and could have two horses in this year's Kentucky Derby. The game is supposed to be a lot tougher than that. Werth gets that.

“I've been in the right place at the right time,” he said. “Here we are, just a couple of years into it, and we are having unbelievable luck and success. I'm torn. Yes, I love horse racing but if we tried to do this again I don't know if we'd be this lucky or have a chance of doing some of the stuff we are doing. We're enjoying the fruits of our success. It's been such a great run and we're having a lot of fun with it. It's hard to believe and I tell people that. I could do this for the rest of my life and invest $10 million a year and not be in this position. It's storybook stuff and I am cherishing every second of this. I can guarantee you that isn't lost on me.”

Dornoch, the full brother to 2023 Derby winner Mage (Good Magic), did his job in the Fountain of Youth, but the race became a lot easier Speak Easy (Constitution), Victory Avenue (Arrogate), Merit (Mastery) and Locked (Gun Runner) were all scratched.

“I would not discount Dornoch on any level just because those horses weren't in there,” Werth said. “If they were, I think we would have seen the same result.”

Dornoch will go next in either the GI Florida Derby or the GI Blue Grass S. Trainer Danny Gargan has yet to decide. The Derby, of course, is the main goal. It's the toughest race in the world to win, but one of his owners has one of the hottest hands in the sport. He has that going for him.

“I understand why people spend millions of dollars on chasing this dream,” Werth said. “That's exactly what it is, a dream. What's happening, I think it is incredible.”

The post Jayson Werth Hits It Out of the Park with Dornoch appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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How to Better Promote Racing…a Q & A with Mattress Mack

Jim McIngvale (Mattress Mack) made history when the Houston Astros won the World Series. He made bets that returned $75 million when they won, the largest win ever in the history of sports betting. The bets were tied into a promotion McIngvale has used many times at his Gallery Furniture Stores in Houston. If he wins the bet, his customers get free mattresses.

He's great at getting publicity for himself and his stores, but never had he seen anything like what happened with this bet, the story of which became a huge hit on social media. In particular, B/R Betting, an arm of Bleacher Report, followed McIngvale from Game 1 of the World Series through the team's victory parade and captured the agony and ecstasy of each moment from someone who had $75 million at stake based on the outcome of a baseball game. Mattress Mack content amassed 75 million video views on B/R Betting, which posted the content on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok. McIngvale figures he got millions of dollars in free publicity out of the B/R Betting posts.

It just goes to show that when it comes to promoting his business and himself, McIngvale has no equal. Because of his bet and the publicity it received, McIngvale became as famous as the Astros star players. So what advice does this master promoter have for horse racing and how can it better promote itself? Those were the questions we had for Mattress Mack.

TDN: In what areas should racing focus its attention when it comes to improving the visibility of the sport?

JM: People love gambling stories. Horse racing needs to do more to play on the gambling aspect because these young kids are fascinated by it. When I went to Philly and got into that famous confrontation with some Phillies fans, which was not my finest hour, everybody up there knew me. They all know me from all the exposure I was getting with places like Bleacher Report. Horse racing needs to have more connection to young people through gambling and find ways where people can win a lot of money. Absolutely, we should promote gambling more. In Philly, everyone knew Mattress Mack and knew about my bet on the Astros. They knew me because they saw me on B/R Betting or the Action Network or whatever. What's better? Horse racing or the lottery? There's no comparison. Horse racing is a much better gambling game and they need to get the word out about that.

TDN: You won $75 million on your Astros bet. There is no way for a person to make that kind of money betting on a horse race, even at the Kentucky Derby. What's your answer to that?

JM: No, you can't make that kind of money betting on racing, but you can make racing a better product for the bettor. Do whatever it takes to get bigger fields and lower the takeout. Figure out a way to get 15- or 20-horse fields like they have in England. You do that and all of a sudden you have a different game, a better game. We see far too many races and stakes that have five-horse fields with big favorites. People don't want to bet on that. Increase the size of the fields and give people a chance to gamble on a good product. That's all people want. People are fascinated with gambling, particularly with sports betting. You've also got to lower the takeout to compete. It's 5% when I make a sports bet. In racing it's four times that.

TDN: What did you think of the decision to retire Flightline (Tapit)?

JM: You have to have superstars. Retiring Flightline. I get it. They had to make the money. But what a shame there wasn't a way to keep him around longer. Football has Tom Brady and a bunch of other high-profile players. Baseball doesn't do a good job promoting its stars, but basketball certainly does. You have to create household names and get people excited about a horse appearing here or there. To me, that's really important. They have to find a way to keep these horses running longer so they have a chance to become household names. The game has to figure out how to keep these horses around as long as they are sound because everyone wants to see a superstar. Pay them an appearance fee. Pay them money to just show up, whether they win or lose. That's one way to get horses to stay around. We need more superstars like Zenyatta, who was still running when she was six. She stuck around and built up a huge fan base.

TDN: What's your opinion of fixed-odds wagering on horse racing?

JM: Going to fixed odds would be would be outstanding. When you bet at 3-1 and the horse goes off at 4-5, that's hard to swallow. I get fixed odds on my Astro bets. Fixed odds are the way to go so that way people know what they are going to get for their money. I think fixed odds would be a great benefit because pari-mutuel betting is too complicated for the average person out there.

TDN: What are some of the problems you see with horse racing as it is now?

JM: No. 1, it has to be more transparent. The optics on horse racing are not good when these guys get slapped on the wrist for these drug positives. That's horrible. You can't have people thinking a horse won because it was drugged. We've also got to do more to keep these horses safe. They've got to improve the technology. Dr. [David] Lambert has this device you can put on the horse and it tells you when it's going to red line and something is going to pop. That needs to be done in workouts and when they race and it needs to be done everywhere. When those horses red line and are about to pop they need to stop on those horses. All that stuff is doable. Dr. Lambert and I are working on what we call the Runhappy Wellness program. We want to get the racetracks to put these monitors on the horses so they can tell when something is going to go wrong. They monitor the baseball players and they monitor football players, so why can't we monitor these horses and make it as transparent as possible? The more transparent the better.

TDN: What are other sports doing right that racing isn't?

JM: Take a look at F1 (Formula 1 racing). F1 came to Austin, where my daughter runs a restaurant for us. They had the biggest two days in their history while F1 was in town. Five years ago, F1 was nothing. I asked a sports marketing friend of mine, how did F1 go from nothing to something, from the bottom of the heap to the top? It all comes down to a deal they did with Netflix. They told the story of F1 on Netflix and look what happened. It has turned into one of the hottest sports in the world. Racing needs to come up with some creative ideas like that. If F1 can do it, why can't horse racing?

TDN: Tell us about your experience with B/R Betting.

JM: It was incredible. Those guys do a great job. The guys from Bleacher Report followed me the whole time during the World Series. We also have our own social media team that runs our sports website, Gallerysports.com. The amount of hits was just incredible. They know how to make this work. You put something on TikTok and it blows up exponentially. It's just unbelievable. People like to see the agony and ecstasy of the big bet. They loved the story.

TDN: Your bet on the Astros was tied into a promotion you do at your stores, where people got mattresses for free if the Astros won the World Series. You had to give away an awful lot of mattresses. Did you come out ahead?

JM: I won $75 million and we sold over $70 million in mattresses. It's the greatest promotion ever. After the Astros beat the Yankees, that Sunday was biggest day we've had in 43 years. The following day, Monday, which was a non-holiday Monday, we did 25% more than that. I had to cut the promotion off because I had reached the max in insurance money, which is what I call my bets. I was filled up to capacity. If I had kept going through the World Series, we would have sold another $40 million worth of mattresses. I got $100 million worth of publicity off this Astros bet. The brand awareness of my business increased tenfold in the last two weeks. When I was on that victory parade with the Astros players going through downtown Houston, people were chanting 'Mattress Mack, Mattress Mack.' There were two million people there. How the else do you achieve something like that?

TDN: Are you optimistic about the future of racing?

JM: Yes, because there is so much opportunity to make things better.

The post How to Better Promote Racing…a Q & A with Mattress Mack appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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For Jim McIngvale, an Astros World Series Win Would Mean $35.6 Million

Horse owner and master promoter Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale is no stranger to making big sports bets, but never anything like this. If his beloved Houston Astros win the World Series, McIngvale will make $35.6 million off of a series of bets he made in June. It would be the largest winning wager ever in U.S. sports betting history.

McIngvale often combines his wagers with promotions at his Gallery Furniture Stores in Houston. Earlier this year, he promised his customers that any mattress they bought worth $3,000 or more would be free if the favorite won the GI Kentucky Derby. McIngvale hedged, wagering $2.4 million to win on 5-2 favorite Essential Quality (Tapit), who finished fourth. A winning bet would have been worth a profit of just less than $7 million, which would have more than covered the amount he lost giving away free mattresses. A loss by Essential Quality still meant that he sold thousands of mattresses he otherwise would not have sold. Either way, McIngvale would come out a winner.

In February, McIngvale won $2.72 million on a Super Bowl wager in which he bet $3.46 million on Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to cover the 3.5 point spread. It was the single largest legal wager placed on the game.

The latest promotion follows the same blueprint as the Derby wager. An Astros World Series win would mean that anyone buying a mattress during the promotional period would get it for free. Prior to the American League Championship Series, McIngvale estimated that having to give away the mattresses would cost him $20 million. It looks like that number has gone up.

When reached Saturday, a day after the Astros advanced to the World Series with a win over the Boston Red Sox, McIngvale said his store was being overrun by customers looking to take advantage of the promotion.

“Today is the biggest day in the store's history,” he said. “By a factor of about four and it's going up all the time. We're going to sell thousands of mattresses. I can't even count them. We're trying to buy them as fast as we can get them. We can't buy them fast enough. It will literally be thousands of mattresses.”

Believing that the promotion would prove to be a huge success, McIngvale made his wagers on June 10, when the Astros were still considered one of many teams with a good shot at going all the way. He bet $2 million that the Astros would win the World Series with William Hill at odds of 10-1 and another $1 million at 10-1 with Fanduel. He also made two smaller wagers at outlets that gave him 16-1. In total, he bet $3.2 million on the Astros.

The Astros are now an odds-on favorite to win their first World Series since 2017.

“I like to gamble,” McIngvale said. “I gamble big all the time. It's a promotion and it's a hedge. My heart and soul are with the Houston Astros, and, just as with Runhappy, I'm all in.”

For a while, it looked like McIngvale had backed a loser. The Astros fell behind, 2-1, in the series with Boston and their starting pitching was a mess. Many a pundit had already given the series to the Red Sox. Instead, the Astros rallied to win the next three games to close out the series and advance.

“I was not worried,” McIngvale said. “After they got beat Monday night, I was in Boston having a good time and saw some of the players that I know and they were upbeat and positive. I knew that sooner or later every batter on the Red Sox would stop hitting. 500. I knew there would be a statistical swing and things sure swung the Astros way over the last three games.”

Having a potential World Series winner at 10-1 means that McIngavle could “save” and bet some amount to win on the National League team. By doing so, he could lock in a guaranteed profit. It's not going to happen.

“I would consider that treason,” he said. “I would never do that to my boys. I wouldn't do that in a thousand years.”

With so many customers buying mattresses on Saturday, it was difficult for McIngvale to do the math. He knows he will make $35.6 million if the Astros win, but there was no telling how much he would lose giving away so many mattresses. That didn't matter with him. Not only is his heart with his hometown, he wants nothing more than to reward his customers with free mattresses.

“It will make customers happy and that's the whole idea,” he said of an Astros World Championship. “That's the whole idea, making customers happy. That's the name of the game. If the customers get their money back, they will talk about this for decades to come.”

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