There’s an App for That!

Okay, I’m an Apple evangelist.  Not because it’s fashionable or cool (though it is), but because their approach to simplicity and ease of use just makes sense.  I often tell those just coming to the World-of-Mac that the most difficult concept to grasp is “It Really is THAT easy.”
“Where’s my ‘C’ drive?” is funny to me.
With that clearly stated, I’ll praise the Apple community one more time for the help I got last Saturday with a nagging Derby time problem…betting.
I’ve tried a lot of betting “methods,” but somehow always got caught up in minutia of the process and apparently never followed any one of them correctly.  I came to consider it a moral victory if I lost only the money I anticipated “spending” for the good time I’d have.
C’mon, you’ve settled for that, too.
Saturday morning, on the way to Derby with a client, I decided to search the iPhone for help.  I found it in the form of an App called “One Click Pony.”
With just a few clicks, you can get picks from nationally syndicated handicapper Liam Durbin (Chicago Tribune and LA Times) for any race at virtually any racetrack in the nation.
It was the fifth race by the time we made our way to the third floor (a spectacular premium box in the Colonel Matt Winn room), and I was anxious to try it out.
I’m a $2 Place bettor ordinarily (sometimes $5 or even $20) who bets too many horses and inevitably ends up betting against myself.  I checked my One Click Pony and it rated four horses as viable (in a number of different ways) and gave me the option to price an Trifecta bet (boxing the four horses recommended).
So I bet it.  And I won.
See, I’ve never placed an Trifecta or Exacta bet before, so the win (and the winnings) were very exciting, to say the least.
Needless to say, I tried it again and again throughout the day, and always got at least two of the top three finishers.  By day’s end, I had hit (out of 6 races) two Trifectas and one Exacta.
For the Derby itself, Liam missed the call completely.  But, all-in-all, I took away a few hundred dollars…courtesy of a $9.99 App.
“It Really is THAT easy!”