‘Let it Ride’ comes from a Rambunctious Road

“Let It Ride,” the 1989 horse racing movie starring Richard Dreyfuss, has a winner’s circle spot in Hot Springs history.

A little-known fact is the cult classic comedy is based on a book called “Good Vibes” by Jay Cronley. The prolific Tulsa World columnist wrote it after an epiphany at Oaklawn racetrack in Hot Springs in the late 1970s.

Released in 1978, “Good Vibes” is out of print now. So it’s both hard to find and expensive when you find it. But the movie is just like the book, minus a few continuity errors, Cronley says. So, unless you have about $400 for a copy of “Good Vibes,” it will be a lot faster and easier to rent it for a few good laughs.

“My favorite scene is still when Trotter is asking all the jokers around the place who they like, and he draws a big line straight through it on the program. I laugh at that every time,” Cronley said. “Oh my god, you should’ve seen the bars across from Oaklawn back then.”

After playing several races at Oaklawn that fateful day, Cronley returned to his cabin at Shangri-La Resort on Lake Ouachita. Being a horseplayer, it wasn’t long before he picked back up his Racing Form to scan the late races. He saw a horse he had to bet. He jumped back in his car and drove as fast as he could back to the track, down a curvy, two-mile stretch to Highway 270, speeding 30 miles due east to 2705 Central Ave. At times, he said, he was “passing cars on the right like a madman.”

He got to the track just in time to place a bet on, no joke, a horse named Rambunctious Road. The gamble paid off. He was in the money. Rambunctious Road– born, 1971, sired by Ramblin’ Road with quarter horse Joy San — paid $200, and a novel idea: A book about horse racing like no one has ever seen.

“I thought to myself, there’s gotta’ be an easier way to make money than this,” Cronley said by phone from his home in Tulsa. “That’s when I said I’ll write about it.”

The book “Good Vibes” has been through at least three publishers since hitting out-of-print status. The movie producer and ex-hockey player Ned Dowd (“Slap Shot” with Paul Newman) found a copy of “Good Vibes” though and together with his screenwriter sister, Nancy Dowd, made a movie out of it.

The night before they started filming “Let it Ride,” Cronley said he and the cast all went to Hialeah Park and Race Course near Miami to get into the spirit of things and bet on the dog races.

“There was this old lady feeding Dreyfuss tips on which dogs to bet, and he made a fortune,” Cronley said. “He was over there hiding his notes like a school boy in class!”

“Let It Ride” may have not received great reviews when it came out, but it soon became obvious those reviewers were idiots. Popularity for the film picked up after a lengthy run on HBO in the early 1990s. Today, one can find clips at YouTube.com with a list of comments describing it as the “greatest horse racing movie ever,” to “literally, one of the most under-rated comedies of all time.”