What Keeps Shecky Greene (The Person) Going? Betting the Ponies

He likes to the play the horses and he likes to bet on jockeys Flavien Prat and Drayden Van Dyke because he knows he can count on those two riders. That makes him like a lot of other horseplayers, but there's not another player out there who is 93, a standup comedy legend, has had an Eclipse Award winner named after him and still plays the races several days a week at a couple of Las Vegas racebooks. Only one person fits that description, Shecky Greene.

“Once you get that bug to play the horses, forget about it,” Greene said. “I enjoy it because there's nothing else for me to do. I'm 93. Am I going to play tennis? No. Am I going to play golf? No. Once you finish with the mishegas of Vegas [he no longer performs], there's not a lot to do out here.”

Greene is a frequent patron at two racebooks, both across the street from his residence, the Sunset Station and the Green Valley Casino. These days, he's a $2 bettor.

“Back in the day, I used to look at the Form and try to figure out which horse was faster,” he said. “But when you bet $1 or $2 a race like I do now, what does it really matter? Pick any horse. You just hope you bet on a winner.”

Greene was born in 1926 in Chicago and became a major star on the nightclub circuit in Las Vegas. He has appeared in several films, including Tony Rome, History of the World, Part I and Splash, and has guest starred on such television shows as Mad About You, Laverne & Shirley, Love, American Style, and Combat!

If racing fans in the seventies didn't know Shecky Greene the comedian, they certainly knew Shecky Greene the horse. Through his friend, fellow comedian Buddy Hackett, Greene knew the horse's owner and breeder, Joe Kellman. He said Kellman liked to name horses after famous people and friends and named the fastest horse he ever owned after Greene.

Shecky Greene, the horse, showed promise right from the start and went on to win the 1973 Hutcheson S. and Fountain of Youth. However, it appeared that the horse had distance limitations and Greene said he begged Kellman not to run him in the 1973 Kentucky Derby, where the competition included Secretariat.

“I begged Joe not to run him in the Derby,” Greene recalled. “He was never going to go a mile and a quarter. I had a falling out with Joe over other things. Originally, I bought 10% of the horse, then when he told me I wasn't going to get any of the breeding rights, I took my money back.”

Sent off at 5-1, Shecky Greene, predictably, took the lead, but faded and finished sixth. Nonetheless, he had so much success sprinting that year that he was named the Eclipse sprint champion.

“Joe liked to name horses after people he knew,” Greene said. “He named a horse Ivy Hackett after Buddy Hackett. But Shecky was the only one who really turned out to be a winner. He was some kind of winner.”

Greene found out that in some parts of the world, people knew the horse better than they knew the person.

“I went to England to do a show,” he said, before breaking into a Cockney accent. “This guy comes to me and says, 'I never knew you were a human being. I thought you were a freakin' horse. I didn't know there was such a person as Shecky Greene.'”

Greene said it was his father who got him interested in racing and would take him whenever he could to the many Chicago area tracks that were running during that era.

“My father drove my poor mother crazy,” he said. “She hated it that he went to the track all the time and that he'd drag me along.”

Greene said that it was easy to stay a racing fan once he got into show business because Las Vegas had the race books and most of the places he would perform, like New York, Los Angeles and Miami, also had racetracks. He never found himself too far away from the track.

“I kept betting because wherever I worked there were racetracks,” he said. “The racetrack was synonymous with show business.”

When frequenting the California tracks, he said he never got too close to the many other celebrities that also frequented those tracks. But he said there was one actor he always tried to avoid.

“This one guy, very famous actor at the time, was a real degenerate,” he said. “He made millions on television and I swear he lost it all at the track. I remember one time I cashed a big bet at Del Mar and he followed me to the cashier's window looking to borrow money.”

Greene said he was frugal when he was making a lot of money as a comedian, usually betting about $10 a race.

He says many of the patrons at the racebooks recognize him, but like to treat him like any other customer. When he encounters a younger player, one he's pretty sure never heard of him or the horse, he'll tell them to get out their phones and “google” him. He enjoys seeing their reaction when they realize they're talking to someone who was once among the more well known comedians in the country.

Ironically, he said one of the worst shows he ever had was one he performed in Lexington.

“Back in those days, half the women in the crowd, the horse people, with their puffed up white hair, looked like George Washington,” he joked. “I just bombed. Never try to entertain horse owners or breeders.”

Even at his age, Greene still has a quick wit and will abruptly cut off the answer to a question by breaking into song. He couldn't resist coming up with a couple that captured his years around racing.

“I've got tears in my eyes when I think of Florida,” he crooned. “The sun shining bright up in the sky. There goes my horse, he's last, of course. There's tears in my eyes.”

And then there's this one:

“Don't bet on the horses,” he sings. “You can't win, of course. No matter at what course you bet, you rip up the tickets and look at each time with much regret. Why didn't I bet that No. 6? It looked much better than the three. Oh, God up in heaven, what are you doing to me.”

“I hope you wrote that down,” he said. “I just made it up. Not bad, huh?”

Not bad at all.