It's a long way from the old Trinity Meadows in Texas to establishing the opening odds for the 152nd Kentucky Derby (G1), but that's the path Nick Tammaro has taken to becoming the morning-line oddsmaker at Churchill Downs.
Tammaro is taking over the role after Churchill fixture Mike Battaglia retired after setting the line for 51 years, correctly identifying the favorite 39 times.
Houston native Tammaro found horse racing as the son of relocated New Yorkers, including his late father who went to races at Belmont Park and Aqueduct Racetrack only to move to Texas and be surprised there was no racing there in the late 1970s. The father, who Nick said would travel to Delta Downs Racetrack and Louisiana Downs to enjoy the races, asked his son at age 7 if he wanted to go to the racetrack—and the sports-loving son said yes, leading to a trip to Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots.
"He bought me a sandwich, and a Racing Form, and I started to watch the races," Tammaro said, noting that the numbers and trying to detect patterns was appealing. He asked his dad if they could "bring it home."
Soon after that trip, Trinity Meadows opened in 1991 west of Fort Worth.
"It was about 45 minutes from where we lived," Tammaro said. "So we went on opening day and, at that point, I was completely hooked. I wanted to go as much as possible, wanted to figure out how to pick winners."
Trinity Meadows closed in 1996, but Tammaro stayed with the sport. He has spent nearly two decades in racing in roles such as handicapper, track announcer, and oddsmaker, where the job is to predict—not who will win—but how the public will wager and what the odds will be when the pari-mutuel betting is completed.
Tammaro became interested in linemaking after friend Travis Stone, Churchill's announcer, served as oddsmaker at Saratoga Race Course. That led to Tammaro trying it and eventually taking on the role at Sam Houston Race Park, where he also announces. Keeneland called in 2022 and he signed on. He also is the oddsmaker for Kentucky Downs.
"I think in general, any work I've gotten in racing ... honestly has been because I've just always worked and always been the person that if you called, I was going to say 'yes,' because you never know when they're going to stop calling. Right?" Tammaro said. "So any opportunity I had, I took and tried to just give it my best and do what I could to get better at it."
The job hasn't been without its challenges, Tammaro said, particularly at Keeneland, where some of the sport's best purses draw horses from all over the country in high-level conditions compared to a regional circuit where the same horses regularly compete.
"I remember in the fall of 2023, I sat down on a Sunday in November, and I said to myself, 'I need to figure out what I'm doing wrong with this.' And I went through the PPs for literally every single racing day to try and get a sense of where I might be making some mistakes," Tammaro said. "And I do that (analysis) now every meet."
The toughest part, he said, is setting the odds too high for horses he wouldn't want to bet as a handicapper.
"You have to divorce yourself from the mentality of this is a horse I want to bet," he said. "Because the reality is that if the public doesn't want to bet that horse, then your line is going to look awful. ... And I think that really honing in on that, getting better about that, has definitely helped the quality of my lines."
An oddsmaker's task of identifying who will be the favorite is easier with a prohibitive favorite—a benefit that this competitive Derby field doesn't offer. He expects to make Arkansas Derby (G1) winner Renegade the morning-line favorite.
"The markets that we've seen, the chatter that we see about him, in general, the collective level of interest in him coming out of the Arkansas Derby is just a little bit too high for him to not be favored," Tammaro said. "But, you know, am I going to be shocked that at 6:57 p.m. on May 2nd, they're loading into the gate and he is around 4-1 and Further Ado is 9-2 and there's a click down? I'm not going to be shocked. I'm not going to be shocked if that's Commandment either."
However, Tammaro said he's a little more confident in Renegade as the public's choice because Further Ado, the Blue Grass Stakes (G1) winner, and Commandment, the Florida Derby (G1) winner, both come from the Brad Cox barn.
"The two Brad Cox horses, in a way, are going to kind of cancel each other out. I think there's going to be a lot of money split between Further Ado and Commandment, and that will further solidify Renegade as the favorite," Tammaro said.
Further complicating the task are wild cards that cause horses to be bet more—such as longshot winners from previous years, a winning trainer's horse in a follow-up year, or a name.
"Obviously, (prior winners) Mage and Mystik Dan weren't Rich Strike's kind of price, but they were big prices," Tammaro said. "And so we're continuing to have horses bet down that otherwise would have been monstrous longshots."
Tammaro said earlier this week that he's calculated this year's Derby line 20 times and, in more detail, on the computer three times. He expected to make the line four or five more times before Saturday's draw for the Derby and Kentucky Oaks (G1), where Tammaro said any one of about five fillies could be the favorite.
"I'm still kind of working through draft No. 2 of the Oaks," Tammaro said April 22. "The Oaks has been very, very difficult."
Setting all the lines for Oaks and Derby day races will mean "Saturday's (April 25) going to be a long night," but Tammaro said he's grateful for the opportunity.
"You know, they're not all gonna be right, but I'm certainly gonna put everything I have into it," he said.
