The Roman philosopher Seneca once said that “luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” While this may be true in many facets of life today, especially in the world of sports, sometimes people are the recipients of just plain old dumb luck.
Two Sundays ago, after betting a relatively small amount on the winners of the 131st running of the Kentucky Derby, one man, not unlike many others, was the beneficiary of some of this chance fortune.
Chris Hertzog, a firefighter from Phoenix, placed 100 – $1 bets on 50 superfecta and 50 trifecta random computer-generated quick pick tickets and won an unprecedented Derby payout of over $864,000.
In horse racing, bettors have the option of placing wagers on superfecta tickets, where they have to choose the top four finishers in the race, as Hertzog did, or in the case of a trifecta, the top three.
So, you’re probably saying to yourself, “Yeah, placing a $1 bet and winning over $864,000 is pretty lucky, but similar occurrences happen every other day with the lottery.”
This is true – so here’s where the story gets interesting. Hertzog, under the impression that he had not won a single cent from his 100 tickets after the finish of the race, walked off and left his winning ticket behind at a table where he watched the Derby.
This was probably an experience that many horse racing fans experienced after watching the 50-1 long shot Giacomo win the race among others such as New York Yankee owner George Steinbrenner’s 5-2 favorite Bellamy Road. But again, this is not where this fairytale ends.
It was announced that a winning superfecta ticket had been sold at Turf Paradise, the betting station where Hertzog had bought his ticket the previous day.
Realizing that it was his ticket, Hertzog returned to Turf Paradise and spent over two hours searching through the clubhouse’s trash with his lawyer in order to make the claim on his winner, but it was to no avail.
“I couldn’t believe I lost this once in a lifetime payday,” said Hertzog in a statement released by the track.
Although the clerk that sold the ticket agreed that Hertzog was the buyer of the ticket and video footage showed him purchasing the ticket at the time that the ticket was printed, Arizona state law requires a winner to present the actual ticket to receive the winnings.
In quite a turn of events though, the next day, the clerk that had sold Hertzog the ticket discovered his lost winner next to the machine where he had purchased them on race day.
“What a roller coaster ride this has been,” said Hertzog in the track press release, “just unbelievable.”
Hertzog, a 39-year-old father of three, said that this fateful day of luck is not going to change his life and that he will return to his firehouse for his next scheduled shift. However, he did plan on celebrating with several close friends at a local Phoenix restaurant and joked about perhaps even splurging on a Dodge Viper.
If someone can be lucky enough to have luck strike twice in such a small amount of time, I say run with it.
Per horse racing tradition, the bettor usually gives the ticket seller some kind of reward. Following this custom, Hertzog graciously awarded the sales clerk $25,000 for her part in this life-changing event.
As a final note regarding this amazing story, Hertzog’s divorce was finalized just one week before he won the money and thus his ex-wife is entitled to none of the prize winnings. So for Hertzog, luck struck not once, not twice, but perhaps thrice.
Therefore, I guess the moral of this story, if there is one at all, is that even when people fall on hard times, there is always a bright side to every narrative.
This tends to be particularly true in the world of sports because in them, everyone at least has a chance of coming up big – possibly even without preparation as Seneca theorized.
If nothing else, as Hertzog put it in the press release, “Don’t you just love happy endings?”
