Howard Sartin and Me Part II

I play for most of July and August. I am winning, almost as before, though not quite 3:1 each month. After deductions for rent, bills, and feeding those darn kids, at the end of the summer I have $1,500, just $300 more than I started with.

I go back into gaming until the following May (1989), when the casino I am working at, Eddie’s Fabulous Fifties, closes. I decide that this is a perfect time to take another run at them.

Armed with a $1,000 bankroll and my 5-months of severance pay as pre-pay on the next couple of months expenses, I begin on June 1st. It is business as usual for the entire summer. I am still doing baseball games every day until late July, but am getting plenty of playing time.

After the Travers at Saratoga I stop and review my result. My $1,000 bankroll has grown to a whopping $2,500, and, once again, I must give it up at the end of the month. Such is the life of the “small business handicapper.”

I also reach the startling conclusion that something else must be holding me back from winning. I decide to call Doc.

When I call, I am surprised to find that it is relatively easy to make an appointment with him for five days later. I am almost sleepless in those next five nights awaiting to hear what Doc is going to tell me. (I have also gotten a job pitching cards again.)

Permit me to stop here for just a moment and say that in later years I heard the stories of Doc never actually having a degree in psychology. (I assume those stories to be true.) Had I known that in 1988, it would not have stopped me from taking his advice. IMHO, someone who [i]practices[/i] as a psychologist, IS, in fact, a psychologist. Heck, I COULD be a psychologist with enough reading and practice!

At the appointed hour I have my appointment. I tell Doc my story. First, he wants to know about my handicapping, my hit rate and average odds. I assure him that all of that is fine. I tell him that I have two kinds of plays – a two-horse play, where I bet them 60-40 (as instructed) and, about 15% of the time a single play, which I then bet win-place at 40%-60%.

I go on to explain that I win 63% of all my races, at average net odds of 4/5. If you do the math, this results in an advantage of around 13%. LOL – With 13% today one can (literally) make $500,000 per year.

Doc is convinced that my handicapping and betting is not the problem.

He says, “If you were my psychology client I would say that you need re-parenting; that we need to re-script your early childhood.”

I ask, “What does that mean, exactly?”

Doc says, “We are all products of our early environment, right?”

“Sure.”

He goes on, “Well, in your early life your parents taught you things – and one or more of those things that they taught you are holding you back now. What you need to do is ask your mother for permission to win.”

Being a smart ass, I said, “That would be a very long-distance call because my mother died 15 years ago.”

Doc says, “Does that really matter? She WOULD give you permission, right? So, just write her a letter asking for her permission.”

At the time, I thought that the whole thing sounded silly, but accepted his counsel. I wrote the letter – a rather long, here-is-my-life kind of letter – and at the end asked for her permission. Howard said to think of the letter as a conversation – a dialog if you will – and to wait for a mental answer from her.

So, I did as instructed, awaited an answer and was immediately swept on to success. No, not quite.

What came from this was not at all what I expected. You see, what I received was just what I asked for: Permission to win.

Note that I did not ask for “permission to win at racing.” What I received was permission to win at life. from that time on my life improved immensely. As often happens, success came from a different direction than expected.

Recall that this consultation with DOCTOR Howard Sartin (who will always deserve that title in MY mind), occurred in September, 1989. In October I got the bright idea to go into the software business which ultimately, became the horse racing business that has occupied my life since early 1990.

Three months later (December, 1989) I received a gift. It came in the form of a catalog and I was permitted to choose any single item in the catalog. One of the items caught my eye:

It was a subliminal tape series called The Subliminal Winner by Thomas Budzynski. What caught my eye was the title of the first tape: “Re-Parenting; Re-scripting early childhood.”

I selected those tapes as my free gift and they truly changed my life.

I could write another volume or two just about those tapes and the impact they had on my life. Just as there are those who called Howard Sartin a fraud, there are those who would say that subliminals don’t work. for the most part, I would agree.

These subliminal tapes were different. They were the real thing.

Just like Doctor Howard Sartin.