Show IS&ORTS By Ttm DiBon Playing the horses - Heywood Hale Broun has been playing the horses for 56 years His betting strategy: Keep it simple “Consistency may be the hobgoblin of small minds but in the uncertain world of horse racing it is probably the best guide to picking winners” he says “Of all the statistics with which the horse player is burdened the most useful are the figures on how often your choice has won or been in the money “Other numbers are subject to a but if good deal of interpretation you stick with horses that have been there or thereabouts at least half the know least time you’ll probably at the way to the payoff windows" artistic peak in 973 That was the year of Secretariat Physically he was the perfect David is the horse like Michelangelo’s perfect man I still carry a picture of Big Red (Secretariat’s sobriquet) in my wallet saw him come around On Derby Day feet that final turn with his tearing at the ground with the cruel power of dinosaur claws He went wide not but from weakness the usual reason from sheer centrifugal force And when he straightened away he seemed to have left the ground altogether and to be pawing the air as he flew I never saw his like before or since Whether this year’s winner will be the stuff of legends no one knows but he or she will have run at least in the matrix of legend — a race run through an Old South that may be gone with the wind or may never have been there at all but which is always around on the first Saturday in May in a big impractical old place that blessedly looks like a racetrack 0 ABC wil broadcast the Derby five next Saturday K from entucky 430-- pm EDT1:3Q-- pm POT n See Burgoo on page 10 USA WtEKEND' April 7 1986 7 |