Good morning / afternoon / evening!

I'm Ray and I have been playing the ponies for the last 32 years.

I was introduced to the ponies by my late "Uncle Dutch" who, after serving a tour in Korea and three in Vietnam, went on to a career at Fort Monmouth until he came back from lunch one afternoon with a few beers in him and slugged a MP. At that point Uncle Dutch became a professional gambler.

I was 14 at the time and my parents were going through a divorce. My mother wanted me to have a positive male influence in my life during my formative years, so it was Uncle Dutch who offered to watch me for the summer.

That summer I spent every day either crunching numbers or on the grandstand apron at Monmouth Park. In between sucking down Buds and smoking Marlboro Reds, he taught me how to handicap. Uncle Dutch carried a black and white marble pad where he kept trip notes, trainer stats, jockey stats, tracked times, biases, and so much more (now it is all in the PPs).

Fast forward a few years and he was bringing table felts to family holidays and teaching me how to play every casino game imaginable (I was proficient at counting cards in blackjack by the time I was 16).

My late grandmother used to organize trips from her retirement home when we'd be down visiting her in Cape May to Atlantic City Race Course where she'd drop $2 to show on every gray (nothing beat being the only one on the bus under 80!. Up until the year she died (at the young age of 98) I would call her for every leg of the Triple Crown with my picks for that year (a tradition I still carry on with my mom).

Fast forward a bit and I have been seriously playing since I graduated college in 1998 and have not had a losing year since then. I play small and the thrill for me is beating the game. I handicap and play the races and most major sports (I added the NBA to the list of leagues I conquered in 2021-22!).

I've had a presence in some sort of way online since 2000 when I worked for a no-name tout giving out daily plays and then through a couple of other selection websites before taking a break when my oldest son was born in 2005. I found my way back and had written for the last six years for a site that pulled the plug a few months back and contacted Dave about finding a new outlet to share what I have learned (and more importantly, learn more from others).

Glad to be the part of something bigger once again... handicapping is that itch that I always need to scratch, even if it is watching two cockroaches run along a wall, chances are I'll probably have a fair odds line and speed ratings figured out on it!