Presumably, everyone understands that tracks do not hire good looking young women as announcers for their sheet reading skills. The young woman in question, moreover, never claimed she was an expert, saying only that she liked to look at the breeding info. Why, then, take pleasure in the fact that she lost her job?

Coincidentally, I think the answer lies in something Harvey Pack has been saying, tongue in cheek, for many yrs, that there are many races where he doesn't need to place a bet because he has a feud or grudge against the connections of all of the entrants, and the pleasure derived from the fact that all of them save one will lose is enough. It seems to me that there is a quite a bit of that kind of thinking among handicappers, so I asked someone who has expertise in the field for his insights.

As expressed by the philosopher Schopenhauer, the thinking early on was that the presence of schadenfreude in a person's heart was a sign of evil. Some, including archbishop R.C. Trent, wrote that even having a word for the emotion was a sign that a culture was corrupt. More modern research indicates that envy is a potent predictor of schadenfreude, & that some feel better about themselves when another falters, often due to low self-esteem. Altogether, not the kind of emotion which is likely to help one achieve success in this most difficult of games.