SUMMERLIN, Nev. — With one more race until the Marlboro Cup at Belmont Park, that cold and wet first Saturday of October 1976, Mike Colucci examined his pockets. Six bucks.
“Had been losing all day,” he said. “I’ll never forget that day; freezing!”
In the next race, he put four of those dollars on the nose of a 40-to-1 shot, connecting that horse with another in an exacta with the last two singles. Both tickets were winners.
“Now I got $500,” Colucci said. “I bet the whole $500 on Forego in the Marlboro. My friend had been doing well that day. I said, ‘Don’t worry about it, Forego will win this race.’ So he bet all $5,000 on it to win.”
Ridden by Willie Shoemaker, the 6-year-old bay carried 137 pounds. More than 30 pounds of lead had been situated in his saddle. Forego carried 18 to 28 more pounds than any of its 10 foes.
At his side, Colucci’s 4-year-old son, Duane, soaked in the atmosphere.
Forego began poorly.
“My friend yelled at me, ‘You made me bet the $5,000!’ He was screaming,” Colucci said. “Shoemaker takes the final turn 10 wide and comes on like a freight train, mowin’ ’em down. And wins!”
By a nose hair ahead of Honest Pleasure, in what the legendary Shoemaker called the greatest race he’d ever participated in or seen. Forego returned $1,100 to Mike, 11 grand to his pal.
“My friend was now happy, hugging me,” Colucci said. “In the backstretch, he wanted to murder me. That’s horse racing.”
A Queens tale
Aqueduct, Belmont Park and Saratoga would teach Duane life lessons, and he’d parlay a keen aptitude with figures into his dream career in Las Vegas.
Since 2020, he has been the race and sportsbook director at the Rampart Casino, a short drive northwest of Vegas. With the Kentucky Derby nearing, he has been highly sought after for podcasts and seminars.
According to Vinny Magliulo, Gaughan Gaming sportsbook director often at the South Point, the Rampart’s sister book, Duane possesses more than horse sense.
“Duane is as good a handicapper as you’ll find in this town, no question,” Magliulo said. “And he’s passionate about the sport. You can be a fan, but when you have the passion, too, that’s a terrific combination.”
Mike and Jean would prepare to leave their Queens home for a weekend day at the beach and check if young Duane was ready. In his room, he’d be calling made-up races into a tape recorder.
At Saratoga, late scratches would turn Duane and cousin Paul into stoops, usually much older men who, with hunched backs and laser eyes on the ground, survey the ground for discarded tickets that are actually good.
Duane was 8 when he and Paul found a stray ducat worth $2,000.
“[Expletive], yeah!” Duane said. “We’d pick up tickets when there were late scratches. Back then, there were 80 million tickets on the floor at Saratoga . . . growing up there was incredible.”
Listen to three words from Duane, 52, and his roots are unmistakable. I brought up “A Bronx Tale,” which he had just watched, again, the previous evening.
He says Mike’s late father, Lenny, enjoyed certain connections, or affiliations, a world with which Mike only flirted.
Long before cell phones and instant news, Mike often met friends for dinner and took Duane with him. They’d need to know baseball scores, so they’d send Duane to a payphone with a quarter.
“He’d get scores over a sports phone,” Mike said. “He was 11, and he’d come back, ‘Reds won 4-3. Yanks, 2-1. Red Sox, 1-0.’ My friends would say, ‘How does he do this?’ All these scores, and he was always right.”
Lessons and streaks
Duane tried attending classes at Queensborough Community College, just a few off-ramps from Belmont Park: “My downfall. I started skipping classes.”
The track educated Duane. He has hit a Superfecta for $15,000 at Del Mar, one for $9,000 at Saratoga and a Pick Six for $40,000. He also once lost 81 consecutive races at Aqueduct.
“Nine races a day, nine days in a row,” Duane said. “[I went] 0-for-81, but you keep plugging away. You don’t let your mindset get defeated. Take a losing streak because the winning streak will come. You hit one of those for $30,000 or $40,000, you’re on top of the world.”
The Goldilocks book
Mike, Jean and Duane moved to Vegas together in 1993. Duane attended dealer school, moving up from dealing craps to box man, then pit boss at the Silver Nugget.
He kept rising, to the Rampart, where Mike, 76, bets the ponies daily.
Southern California handicapper Tommy Lorenzo has been visiting Vegas for more than 30 years and often opts for the cozy Rampart book, beside a JW Marriott, over the Strip.
“A ‘Goldilocks’ sportsbook,” Lorenzo said. “Not too big, not too small. Just right. Beautiful screens and seating, at the same time an old-school type of place, in terms of customer service. Duane is a horse-racing ambassador.”
For this Saturday at Churchill Downs, Duane expects the world to back Journalism and Sovereignty. He likes East Avenue, whom I nabbed at 25-1 at the Westgate SuperBook on April 17, and trainer Brendan P. Walsh.
“My sleeper,” Duane said. “I hope he draws in. He showed an incredible pace in the Bluegrass. He’s a definite sleeper.”