Photo courtesy of Eclipse Sportswire

Anybody who has ever wandered through the doors of a racetrack has undoubtedly dreamed of walking out a few hours later with gobs of cash lining their pockets. That’s part of the allure of spending a day at the racetrack, the possibility of hitting the big score or getting on a roll where you just can’t seem to lose. This blog - featuring data courtesy of Equibase - will highlight the biggest scores of the past week in racing.

Most gamblers who are more than casual horseplayers know that the bet in racing that is most likely to make a millionaire is the Pick 6. The wager requires a bettor to correctly select the winners of six races in a row, but for the “average Joe” with a modest amount of money with which to wager (known as a bankroll) this bet is probably out of his or her league.

For one thing, the Pick 6 minimum is almost always $2. Most tracks offer 50-cent Pick 5s, Pick 4s, and/or Pick 3s, but the Pick 6 is almost always a $2 minimum bet and that limits the number of options for a horseplayer. For example, if you want to select two horses in each of the six races - your top choice and second choice or maybe your top pick and a longshot – the ticket would run you $128 ($2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = $128). Say there is one race that you really don’t have a good feel for and you want to expand your coverage in that difficult race to three or four horses, you’d be looking at $192 and $256, respectively. You can see how a smaller bettor with $50 or $100 in his or her pocket is not a candidate for the Pick 6.

But the allure of the Pick 6 is the possibility of a huge return on investment. Take last Sunday (Feb. 9) as a prime example. The $2 Pick 6 at Santa Anita Park  - comprised of Races 4 through 9 – returned $119,476.00. OK, so it’s not the million-dollar payout I started off talking about, but certainly that is one heck of a score considering not one horse in the six races went off at double-digit odds (10-to-1 or higher). Two of the six winners were favorites that went off at less than 2-to-1 odds and a third winner was the 3.60-to-1 second betting favorite. Below is the entire sequence:

#Denotes won via disqualification

*Denotes favorite

One thing that is important to note for this Pick 6 is that each race in the sequence had at least eight runners. So while there might not have been a double-digit odds winner in the sequence there also were no 4- or 5-horse fields that would have limited the options. No matter how you slice it, there’s no denying that $119,476 represents one hell of a day at the racetrack.

There were a couple of key horses that triggered multiple big payouts during the last week. Pure Inspiration who won the fourth race at Delta Downs on Feb. 5 at 55.80-to-1 and Narvaez who finished second in the Gulfstream Park Sprint Stakes (Race 11 on Feb. 8) at 139-to-1 odds.

Pure Inspiration represented the biggest payout for a $2 win bet at $113.60 and also was the first half of a Daily Double that returned $3,871.20 for a $2 bet. Riding a 15-race winless stretch into the race, perhaps one would have needed divine inspiration to land on this horse for a win bet, Daily Double or Pick 3. The Pick 3, by the way, that started with Pure Inspiration in Race 4 and ended with Race 6 produced a payoff of $40,279.80 for $2. There was a total of $13,4281 wagered into the pool for this bet, so doing a little math reveals that the winning ticket was a 50-cent (the minimum bet for the wager) ticket that returned $10,069.95 to one lucky gambler. 

Narvaez perhaps was a little bit easier to uncover in that he had shown some talent last year when he finished fourth in the Florida Derby. The Gulfstream Park Sprint was also his second race after a break of almost eight months, so while he had never before finished in the top three in a stakes race he was eligible to improve.

Of course, eight of his 10 opponents were stakes winners entering the race, so he was up against a loaded field and thus overlooked at 139-to-1 odds.

Falling Sky won by 5 ½ lengths at 14.80-to-1 odds with Narvaez edging Brujo de Olleros by a half-length for second. A $2 place bet on Narvaez paid $89.20 and the longshot triggered a $1,627.60 payout for a $2 exacta. He also was the key to a $1 superfecta payout of $32,331.40.

The top Pick 4 payout by return on investment for the week ended Feb. 9 came on Sunday at Gulfstream for Races 5 through 8. Little Alexis at 23.10-to-1 – the longest shot in the field – kicked off the sequence in the fifth race and was followed by a 21.40-to-1 winner in White Sangria in the sixth. After that, you were just a 4.10-to-1 Successful Luck in the seventh and 3-to-1 Leader Avenue in the eighth away from a $25,878.40 payout for a $1 Pick 4 ticket.

Nobody ever said this game was easy, but when you land on a horse you really like or get particularly hot one day at the racetrack, the reward can be life changing.

Bet on it!