Hope Springs Eternal for Horse Racing Betting Fans

It's been more than three decades since Affirmed became thoroughbred racing's 11th and last Triple Crown winner, compelling evidence that whether your game is horse racing betting or horse racing breeding, a horse's pedigree and the best intentions do not assure success.

Never mind that the quest can be unreasonable and irrational. Whether it's cashing a future book ticket or standing next to your horse in the winner's circle at one of this spring's Triple Crown races, where there's hope, there's money. And someone always is willing to spend it at a race and sports book or a yearling sale.

While the rewards are vast, the risks are great, too. Say you're a financially secure owner who brings his most prized mare to the blue grass of Kentucky for a mating with 2009's leading stallion, Tiznow. You shell out $75,000 for the privilege. Through April 20 of this year, out of 90 runners, Tiznow has produced just 29 winners, with just four stakes victories, only one of them in a Grade 1 race. His offspring had earned $4.9 million in 2009, most of it ($3.7 million) by one horse, Well-Armed.

For a more exhaustive example, take the late Seattle Slew, one of the most prolific stallions in the sport's long history. Your chances of a resulting foal running in a race were about seven in 10. Of the 1,050 foals produced by Seattle Slew, 114 of those (11 percent) won a stakes race. And despite a list of progeny that includes A.P. Indy, Slew O'Gold, Capote and Landaluce, just one of Seattle Slew's 1050 offspring, Swale, captured the Kentucky Derby, the premier prize on the American racing landscape.

But if most astute horse racing bettors understand that superior bloodlines don't always flow to the winner's circle, that hasn't stopped the well-heeled from throwing countless dollars in search of the perfect racehorse.

Despite a wealth of resources, not every quest ends happily. Alfred Vanderbilt, who spent more than a half-century breeding and racing thoroughbreds, never won the Kentucky Derby. He came close though, finishing second with Discovery in 1934 and again, painfully, with Native Dancer in 1953. Native Dancer's defeat, when he was bumped by Money Broker at the start and beaten a head by the improbable longshot Dark Star, was the gray's only career loss in 22 starts. Vanderbilt once said he would trade all of Native Dancer's other victories for a win in the Kentucky Derby. Of course, it doesn't work that way and if you had a ticket on Dark Star at $51.80, you don't care much that the 3/5 Native Dancer was the better bred horse.

Sometimes though, there are happy endings for both owners and bettors. Frances Genter owned Smile, who Spend A Buck could not warm up as a 2-year-old in 1984 and who was the game's champion sprinter in 1986. But when Spend A Buck won the 1985 Kentucky Derby, Smile was nursing a knee injury.

Genter was a frail 92-year-old woman when trainer Carl Nafzger, acting as her eyes, told her that her horse, Unbridled, was charging down the stretch in the 1990 Kentucky Derby. Genter brought the garland of red roses back to the Minneapolis retirement home where she spent her final years. Unbridled paid $23.60 for his triumph over Summer Squall, a coup for some happy bettors.

Philanthropist Paul Mellon had put a lifetime of good works into the thoroughbred racing industry before his Sea Hero ($27.80) beat Prairie Bayou to win the 1993 Kentucky Derby.

But whether you're betting horses or racing them, failure is the more likely result. Something as innocuous as a cough can knock a colt off his Triple Crown schedule and doom your future book ducat. Driven to speeds of 40 miles per hour on legs no wider than the neck of a baseball bat, some horses cannot stand the strain and break down. Some, despite their carefully researched bloodlines, cannot sustain their speed over classic distances. Most simply are too slow.

Yet breeders, owners and horse racing betting enthusiasts persist, all striving to have the right horse in the sport's biggest races. It is an unyielding spirit of optimism that drives these people to persevere when others have long given up the chase.

Driven by hope, they're willing to put their money where their dreams are.