People claim that politics is like a horse race. But Tony Amabile, a veteran political consultant and founder of Meadowlands Associates in Jersey City, gave new meaning to the old metaphor when he won a free trip to Las Vegas to compete in a national horse-race handicapping contest last month.
Born in Scotland, and with a grandfather who frequently attended the Queen’s Circle at Ascot (one of Britain’s premier racing centers), Amabile says he must have horse racing in his blood.
Amabile, whose political skills have made him a fixture in Hudson County politics for decades, attended horse races starting at age 17 and soon became a public handicapper.
To handicap, a person analyzes a race, taking in all of the factors – such as the history of a horse, its health, and the kind of track on which the horse is racing – and then predicts how well that horse will do in an upcoming race.
Mastery at the Meadowlands
Last October, Amabile won $10,800 in the Meadowlands Race Qualifier that also came with an expenses-paid trip to Bally’s in Las Vegas for two, where he competed in the national championship.
“I won the trip for two and free lodging,” Amabile said. “I took my wife, Betty [Spinelli], with me to bring me luck.”
His victory at the Meadowlands came after several years of trying out.
“Different tracks have qualifying tournaments,” he said. “The person who wins goes to the finals. I’ve entered a few but never won before. It was a learning process. This year I won.”
In his Meadowlands victory, Amabile had to make 10 wagers on races in the Meadowlands, Santa Anita, Mountaineer, and Retama tracks. His big victory came on a relatively long-shot horse called River’s Prayer.
“The horse was at 18-to-1 odds,” he said. “I looked at the racing-form rating, at its breeding, how it did on a wet or dirt track, whether it was bred for distance,” he said. “Some people use racing forms. I think they’re a pretty good barometer of how a horse will do.”
In this case, he was right.
Very close to victory in Vegas
Amabile then went on to the National Handicapping Championship in Bally’s Las Vegas over three days, Jan. 25 through Jan. 27.
Although he failed to win in Las Vegas, Amabile came within a hair’s breadth of winning, missing his mark on two key races that – had they turned out as he expected – would have given him the title.
“If they had won, I would have won first place,” he said.
But he’s not disheartened. As he had with local races, Amabile viewed the trip to Las Vegas as a learning experience.
“It was a great trip and I hope to get back there,” he said. “I learned a lot about how the contest works. It was an important lesson.”