Thanks to Nick Trost (Card Magic of Nick Trost, pg. 99) the history of using playing cards for running a horse race traces back to at least 1914 and a race game called “Minoru” after King Edward VII’s racehorse. Then John Scarne described the Horse Race card game c. 1949 in Scarne on Cards and in 1952 Toni Koynini was the first magician to use the horse race as a gambling demonstration with his routine Derby.
Harries’ Goran Klyve has created a wonderful version of a horse race that is very simple to perform, looks bright and colorful, and seems very clean to the spectator. The method is not earth shattering but very workable and giving the cards to both spectators to shuffle half each seems totally fair.
(Notice: there are some black marks and a small patch of sharpie touch-up at one end where I tried to clean off the marks with acetone, which was a bad idea. But you will barely notice it – I did include a photo near the end to try and highlight the situation, but it was quite difficult to photograph because it is barely noticeable, and certainly has no impact on the effect.)
Notice: Use your own currency, $100 not included 🙁
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