Word: matheson
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...goat, of course, won (otherwise the story would never be told). Even so, says Matheson, no good horse player ever counts on luck. Nor does he listen to his wife. Matheson should know. He spends most of his time traveling about the U.S., lecturing (at $35 per course per student) to would-be horse players on how to win at the races...
This week, with racing at Aqueduct under way, Horse Professor Matheson moved into New York for the fall term, got set to give his usual monthly series of lectures between trips to the track. Average enrollment: 65. "This is the best racing in the world," said Matheson, as he looked at the stone spires of Manhattan. "The town is full of horse players...
...handicapper may judge a thoroughbred's breeding, consistency and condition, its ability to carry the assigned weight, the skill of the jockey and the ability of the trainer. Then he must learn how to check his judgment in the paddock. Does his horse look nervous? anxious to run? Matheson, says Matheson, can teach the student how to tell...
...classroom Matheson usually throws in a supply of good, sound horse sense: never bet on anything unless the odds are at least 5 to 2; stay away from the Daily Double ("the Daily Double is loaded with pigs"); wait until the second half of the afternoon's card, when the races include tested and proven animals; keep away from two-year-olds ("no one knows what they can do"). The battle may not always be to the strong, or the race to the swift-but that's the way to bet. "Be satisfied if you find as many...
...Need Love. One essential that Matheson confesses he cannot transmit to a pupil: the love of racing. A man has to be interested in animals as well as mathematics before he can decide what a given horse can do. Matheson himself got the bug early. At twelve he rode his grandfather's horses on scrubby "bull rings" (half-mile tracks) in Idaho and Utah. After the University of Utah and stints as a miner, a newsman and a Hollywood writer, Matheson tried a comeback as a professional rider in World...