Horseplay with Michael Beychok – Baton Rouge political consultant to be on reality show

Michael Beychok was 13 years old when James Carville took him to see a horse race at the Fair Grounds in New Orleans. There, Carville, a family friend who worked for Beychok’s father at the time, opened up the then-teenager to a world of horse handicapping.

“It was shocking at the time,” Beychok says. “I probably cursed him for introducing me to the sport, but that all changed a few years ago. Now, I’m blessed that he took me.”

In 2013, Beychok, a Baton Rouge political consultant, took first place in the National Handicapping Championship, betting his way to a purse prize of a million dollars.

He is just one professional horse gambler featured on the new reality show Horseplayers, currently airing on the Esquire Network. The 10-part series explores the high-stakes world of handicapping, and during the season, Beychok is seen as the man to beat.

What makes handicapping a nail-biting experience is that there is no formula for winning. The only constant, Beychok says, is that a competitor has to be willing to stand long losing streaks for the one big score.

“The secret, if there is such a thing, is psychology,” he says. “You have to be able to accept that you’re going to lose probably five times as much as you win in terms of events. If you can’t accept that, you’re not going to make money.”

Six-figure winnings aren’t unusual for Beychok. But before those big wins, he says he’ll have six-month and sometimes year-long droughts.

“It’s tough,” he says, mentioning he’s currently in the midst of a losing streak. “You try different things to get out of the slump. You try to convince yourself, ‘It will be OK.’ Nowadays, I try to unplug and totally shut off horseracing for long periods of time until I get my brain back together.”

Another part of the drama and appeal of the handicapping world in Horseplayers is the camaraderie, or lack thereof, between the players.

“We talk trash, we kid each other and we root for each other,” he says. “Viewers will see that later in the season. Some folks don’t want to see others win. Some of us want to see people win more than others. Clearly, there’s some confrontation between the group when things get competitive, because every one of us on the show wants to win.”

Though Beychok is a star in the handicapping world, he was reticent to participate in the show at first.

“How could it not be weird?” he says. “No one should really like cameras following you around, taping everything you say. I tried to learn to deal with it while we’re trying to perform handicapping and compete. I’m not sure if I ever mastered the balance between those two.”

There’s no doubt that handicapping has been a chunk of Beychok’s life, but he says it doesn’t define who he is. His real job in the political world as well as being a father and husband are factors that might see him finally step away from handicapping.

But don’t bet on it. Just a few weeks ago, 35 years after he and Carville first went to New Orleans to watch horses, they returned to the Fair Grounds and made a few bets.

“We both used to be really intense betters,” he says. “When we would go with the guys back then, there was a lot of ribbing and lots of competition on the track. We’ve both kind of mellowed.”

For more information on Horseplayers, click here.