The show is great, but you have to really know something about horse racing and its betting machinery to appreciate it. At the end of the show I feel like I should be stepping out of my door and be headed to Hattie's, Old Brook Tavern, Carson's Inn, Longfellow's, or some other familiar eatery and absorb some food and racing atmosphere with other diners who have just seen what I've seen.
Watching Friday's telecast it was announced that the Pick Six was headed for a carryover into Saturday with a $502,000 pool. This is significant money, and guarantees that the heavy hitters and syndicate boys are going to be burning some midnight oil doping out Saturday's card and figuring out the best permutations to play to keep the invested (bet) money low, and the likelihood of return high.
For me, the surprise was not that there was a significant carryover, it was that they announced it before the final race in the Pick 6 sequence, the 10th and last race. As Harvey Pack used to intone, usually after the last race, "noooo one picked six...so we have a carryover"
To have a carryover before the last race is run is unusual. I means there must have been some bombs in the earlier races that wiped out the players and left the pool with the possibility that even when the last race results were official, no one was going to have picked six. Wow.
The Pick Six pool is allocated to pay off those who have picked 5 out 6; any 5 of the 6. A non-carryover Pick Six pool is taxed at 15%, that is 15% is subtracted from the pool, money off the top, takeout, and is used to distribute money to NYRA , the state and the horsemen, in the form of purse money.
But a carryover pool is taxed at 24%. So, as the amount might progressively move higher, the takeout also regressively moves higher.
This lead me to check the prices in the sequence for Friday. No real bombs, but not filled with favorites either: $32.40; $16.20, $27.80, $22.20, $5.50, $21.00. The sequence of four double digit prices at the start of the sequence helped assure an early carryover. Generally, the syndicate boys will hit the ALL button, play all the horse in the last race of the sequence in order to insure that if they're going to be alive going into the last race, they'll hit the Pick Six, or, if they've missed a race in the first five, that they'll at least be rewarded with the consolation return of 5 our of 6. They might even make money, depending on how much they've pumped into their bet via the permutation of results.
The word "single" means many things. It can mean unmarried, or the claim of being unmarried depending on the encounter, and it can mean the selection of one horse in a race in the Pick Six sequence. Never make the mistake that true horse players are dummies. They can calculate odds and payout in a flash, and know how many permutation they're going to wind up with if they keep "going deep" into selecting multiple horses in a race sequence.
When the opportunity to feel so strongly about a race that only one horse can be considered to be the winner, the mortal lock as the lingo goes, then the Pick Six player will "single" that race in the sequence and take advantage that any number multiplied by 1 remains that number.
If their single doesn't win, all their late-night handicapping and teeth gnashing is for naught. Their Pick Six ticket is reduced to the hope of of hitting the consolation. Miss another race in the sequence, and you're out. Goodbye "investment."
I am not a Pick Six player. I hate to see a winner that may pay a decent price get gobbled up and become worthless to me if the ticket fails. One year, The Assembled on one of those Saturdays at Belmont that featured six stake races combined their funds to the tune of $2 apiece, in this case $8 and reached agreement on a Pick Six ticket that picked two horse in two races, then picked four singles in four races. As any mathematician will tell you, the permutation count on this is 2x2x1x1x1x1 =4. Since a Pick Six ticket has to be a $2 bet, this ticket cost us $8.00. We were a "syndicate."
The six races were the six graded stakes races. On the very first leg we finished second with our pick. I don't remember if that was a "two deep" bet, but right at the outset, the best we could hope for was to hit the next 5 to get the consolation payout.
As usual, when this kind of activity is agreed upon by The Assembled, I wind up making the bets and holding the ticket. I nearly threw it way after the result of the first leg, but then remembered we could still hit the next 5. We did.
Since we really didn't put a great deal of handicapping into the ticket, (or a lot of money, thank goodness) we picked the obvious favorites, plus two second choice in the "two deep" slot. Well, all favorites won the six stake races.
None of us were so into the bet as the sequence progressed that we consulted the board as to payout possibilities before the last leg was run. As we waited with amused anticipation as to what "riches" we might get, one of The Assembled left and told me I could have his portion of the payout. I said, "no, Bob, I'll buy it for $3." He declined, and told be to keep it.
When the $70-something payout popped up after a bit of a delay (there always is) for hitting six it was of course followed by the amount for 5 out of 6: $11.00 was the consolation payout.
I have always been impressed that $11 divided by 4 is $2.75 apiece. Bob, who left early, could have made $3 if he sold me his share before the payout was posted. To a man, we all made money on the bet. Less than subway fare.
The broadcasters who populate the FS2 are all known to racing fans, even Gabby Gaudet, a pretty fresh face who joins a New York team. Andy Serling who has never been without something to say about anything and everything, and probably talks in his sleep, commented to his broadcasting partner, Tom Amoss, that going into Saturday's Pick Six he would single Flinstshire and Destin.
Amoss was surprised. Destin was in a very competitive Jim Dandy race that sported Creator, winner of the Belmonet , with Mohaymen and Governor Malibu, all good three-year olds with top credentials for a $600,000 Grade II mile and an eighth race for only three-year olds.
Amoss challenged Andy on singling Destin. Andy, being Andy, was nearly Surly Andy in his confidence in Destin over the others. You knew these guys were going to put a Pick Six ticket together, either on their own (most likely) or with others. A Pick Six Carryover at a NYRA track will attract money from all over the nation. Every online betting site will inform anyone who has a Pick Six tickler set that the New York carryover has climbed to s life altering value.
No surprise than when the betting closed for the Pick Six pool now had $3,228,758 in it. That of course is after the takeout, the money-off-the-top. Given the sharks that come swimming in the pool from all over the nation via interstate online wagering, the $3 million pool on a decent NYRA Saturday card is no real surprise. Considering all the players covering a huge variety of outcomes, it would also be no surprise that several players would have to share the pool if they hit it, and that a consolation 5 of 6 is not going to be a big payout.
Now we get to the marquee race in the Pick Six sequence, The Jim Dandy. Flintshire has already given the single players the victory they anticipated in the Bowling Green Handicap, winning with the utmost of ease in a four horse field paying $2.20 to win. That's 1-10 odds. The second lowest they can go. Lowest is 1-20, paying $2.10.
The Jim Dandy has six horses, several of whom have been on the Triple Crown trail. This even includes Loban, a maiden in the race, a horse who has never won a race. It is extremely rare for a maiden to even be placed in such a race, a graded Stake s races against others who have won significant money.
No one is talking about Loban's chances. The 27-1 odds are actually considered low. He's not accorded a chance in hell of winning. All the broadcasters are making their cases for their picks, with Andy Surly bad mouthing Mohaymen's chances and Tom Amoss making a case for him.
But that's what horse racing amongst handicappers is: strong opinions for and against. When The Assembled gather we are no different. Cases are made out loud for whomever, but minutes before post each player becomes quiet and makes up their own mind. No one argues with the other.
If anyone has ever spent some time watching and handicapping races from Saratoga they should know that a horse on the lead in a mile and an eighth race, the circumference of the track, stands a strong chance of going all the way: take the lead, set moderate or even slow fractions, and hold off the posse once in the stretch.
My friend and I once picked the speed in a last race, a mile and an eighth affair, that was going to be ridden by Jean Cruguet--on the dirt. We had collectively asked ourselves, "who's the speed?" Neither of us played "the speed" for some reason, and then spent nearly two minutes watching in pure agony as Cruguet did exactly what we thought he would do. And win the race. Teeth gnashing time.
Two years a similar last race scenario presented itself. A collection of underachievers going a mile and an eighth at Saratoga. These are great races at Saratoga because the starting gate is right in front of the stands, and you get the clang and the hustle of the jockeys as the gates open.
We picked the speed. Something ridden by Dylan Davis, himself a very young jockey with a low win percentage. But how bad can he be? Get out, go for the front, and hang on.
And that's exactly what happened. He broke well, took the lead, and we, instead of watching in agony kept reporting back to each other from our binoculars that he looked good, and Dylan, please, please, don't fall off. He didn't. He won, and so did we. Saratoga born jockey gets his first win at the Spa. Made next day's paper.
Money won is twice as nice as money won, and when a race unfolds as expected and you collect, you have achieved Nirvana.
So when Laoban took the lead and settled into decent fractions it still did not seem he was going to go all the way. Too much talent behind him. Destin was going to be destined to win, right? And in the stretch, when Destin and Governor Malibu were inching up on Laoban, weren't they going to go past a tiring Laoban and one of them was going to win, the other second, and I'd have my exacta. Right?
There are strange things run under the Saratoga sun, and the strangest you might ever see are the results of a mile and a eighth race. Laoban wins, and the crash of the Pick Six tickets that didn't have Laoban in the mix is nearly audible. Andy Surly ripped Destin a new portal for excrement.
A maiden wins the Jim Dandy, trained by Eric Guillot, a Cajun who a few years scored a similar upset in a grades stakes race, the Whitney with Moreno.
By now, Guillot has stopped talking and the party at Southern Equine Stables has died down and some have gotten some sleep. Perhaps. The stalls assigned to Southern Equine are right on Union Avenue, and you pass them as you walk along that side of the street. One day for whatever reason, they were playing lively Cajun music from there before the first race. They seem to be a party bunch.
So, who hit the Pick Six? Personally, I don't know who, just like I don't know who hits the Lottery. What we do know is that is was hit, for $34,458, created by horses in the sequence that paid: $7.20, $2.20, $8.00, $11.40, $56 and $8.80. That a $56 bomb, Laoban, didn't send the pool into a another carryover gives you some idea of the volume of players who tackled the bet. The 5 of 6 consolation paid $190.50, a thin salve for the wounds of not hitting it.
There is a reason it is called gambling.
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