Ray may be gone, but he's still trying to pick a winner of the Belmont

Memories pop up for the weirdest reasons: a song reminiscent of an old sweetheart, a touch triggering sensations from fingertips to the brain, a taste, an odor, a vision, all able to rekindle events believed long forgotten. My personal memory bank was jogged by pain, nothing major-just a spill from a bicycle while haphazardly negotiating a curb. Almost before I hit the ground the image of Ray, the best and luckiest gambler I've ever known, appeared.

The rotund man looked exactly the same as he did the last time I saw him in May of 1974: size 44 checked pants worn high above his protruding belly; the white banion sport shirt, complete with mustard and tomato sauce stains belying protestations to his wife that he had eaten nothing between meals; loosely tied light blue sneakers; and, of course, that silly black beret cocked perilously atop his round, bald pate.

The reason my bicycle mishap prompted memory of Ray became immediately obvious. It was just days before the 1974 Kentucky Derby (G1) that my friend fell off his bike and died instantly of cardiac arrest. There was surprisingly little sadness at his funeral-not for lack of friends or family; he had legions-but because all who knew him well realized the happy-go-lucky man crammed more in his limited 48 years than most could in three lifetimes.

Ray's "visitation" was especially opportune with the Triple Crown races at hand. The last time we had spoken took place the night before he died. As usual, the subject was his favorite form of gambling: horse racing.

When it came to successful gambling, Ray had no peer. It wasn't that he was a good handicapper. Actually, Ray did not know a bloodline from a hemline. What he did know was people and how to assess and decipher information.

I often tried to impart my long longhand, time-proven theories on grass racing and influence of pedigree; but Ray would have none of that. "Just let me hang around listening to you and your buddies talk for 15 minutes and I'll come away with all I need to know to make my bets." And make his bets he did. Ray was an ambidextrous bettor of the highest order and a very high percentage winner.

He loved a good story and told a better one. Once he surprised me on the way to Gulfstream Park by expressing a very strong opinion on his own. I asked for an explanation, and he said it was a secret. On this rare occasion he joined me in the paddock to watch the post parade. I did notice he never even looked at the horse, just the jockey. Apparently satisfied with what he saw, Ray told me, "Don't ask questions, just bet all you want."

I took his advice and was astounded when his selection came home a galloping winner at 15-to-1. "Why did you like him?" I asked impatiently. "I'll tell you later," he replied.

Ray revealed his secret to me in the car heading home. "The trainer gave me $500 to bet IF the jockey was holding his reins in his right hand. If they were in his left, there was no action." Ray's circumspect nature and generosity with his winnings attracted plentiful stories from the backstretch.

One in particular has some connection to the 2000 Triple Crown. The day Mr. Prospector broke his maiden at Hialeah Park, I had rushed up from the paddock to tell Ray my impressions of the upcoming race and the fabulous looking son of Raise a Native. "I just saw a horse that looked like he was running when he stood still. He seemed to be on fire!"

Shortly after Mr. Prospector won his third straight race and established a track record at Gulfstream (still intact today), Ray secured some inside information too good to ignore. Jimmy Croll's stable foreman told him the blazing colt shaded 1:34 during a pre-dawn work with jockey Walter Blum up. Stable connections were betting $100,000 in the Kentucky Derby winter book.

Not one to miss the boat with this type of information, Ray boarded a plane that day to Las Vegas and plunked down his own $5,000 and $100 of mine on Mr. Prospector at 50-to-1. He took the red-eye home, a winner regardless, as he employed his own tried-and-true theory of betting at the tables: quit when $5,000 behind or $10,000 ahead. His bulging pocket attested to the latter.

Ray's stories extended beyond the racetrack. A favorite of mine took place when he was manager of a major Southern country club.

Ray's culinary expertise was widespread. One of his masterpieces was chicken blintzes, which were so special the governor had his personal limousine drive 120 miles roundtrip to bring them to the statehouse on Sundays.

Ray was very close friends with the club president, who felt the exclusive club lacked one ingredient from being top class: no tennis courts. So he and Ray decided to canvass the membership by mailing out postcards. The results came back 90% negative; so the two conspiring compatriots trashed the evidence and began immediate construction.

As the Derby approached, Ray typically took a poll of all his horse cronies so that he could formulate an opinion. Most of the survey votes went to Judger, the early favorite. My choice was his stablemate, Cannonade, to be ridden by Angel Cordero Jr.

Knowing that entries ran as separate betting interests at off-track betting in New York, Ray sent money to back "his" opinion. Ray's luck seemed to run out as death approached. Mr. Prospector never made the starting gate, so that $5,000 was blown. Judger, favored at 5-to-2, finished out of the money. But Cannonade won and paid $20 in New York, making Ray a winner even in the hereafter.

My grogginess was wearing off and I had to ask Ray a question before he left. With all the profound possibilities flooding through my head, I only had the presence of mind to ask, "Who do you like in the Belmont Stakes (G1)?"

My old pal's response shocked me. "Looks like a Triple Crown to me."

"Don't they have results where you are?" I asked, perplexed. "There will be no Triple Crown winner this year."

Flaunting his celestial knowledge, Ray countered, "Sure there will. Don't you study pedigree anymore? There will be a Mr. Prospector Triple Crown." With that, Ray smiled a proud Cheshire cat grin and vanished.

I stood up, straightened my crooked handlebars and realized that Ray, as usual, had numbers working in his favor with as many as three scions of Mr. Prospector-Fusaichi Pegasus, Tahkodha Hills, and Wheelaway-in the Belmont.