Woodbine Winners is an inside look at how horseplayers and bettors – from novices to pros – strike gold when playing the races at Woodbine. As part of the ongoing Woodbine Winners series, we're going to show you tickets that result in life-changing scores, get insights into how the bets were made and learn more about the people who hit those winning tickets. 

The Super Hi-5 wager is a very tough bet to hit, and requires the total package when it comes to betting on horse racing: astute handicapping, skill in constructing a ticket, and, of course, luck.

To win the bet, you have to pick the top five finishers in a race. The Super Hi-5 is not a bet that’s offered in every race; it’s usually reserved for races with large fields and is often a feature wager on the last race of a day’s card.

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Such was the case at Woodbine in race 10 on Aug. 8, when 12 fillies and mares who’d yet to win a race squared off in a 5 ½-furlong maiden optional claiming sprint on the main Tapeta Footings track.

An added appeal to Woodbine’s Super Hi-5 – called the Jackpot Hi-Five – is that the full pool is paid out only if there is one winning ticket. If there isn’t, the wagering pool is carried over into the next race where the bet is offered. On Aug. 8, the Jackpot Hi-5 featured a carryover of over $295,000 heading into the day’s wagering, and a mandatory payout was established, meaning that the pool would be paid out to all tickets with the winning top-five combination. By the time the race went off at 6:04 p.m. ET, the pool had increased to nearly $897,000.

Woodbine is renowned for their fan- and horseplayer-friendly low minimums, and their Jackpot Pick-5 bet can be played for only 20 cents, with a 15 percent takeout. In race 10, the 2.05-1 favorite Marjorie’s Dream led gate-to-wire under Patrick Husbands to score by eight lengths, improving in her third career start after finishing fifth and then second. She filled out a top slot in the Jackpot Hi-5 that a lot of horseplayers surely had on their own tickets. But after that, things got a lot tougher.

Runner-up Trading Bay was clearly second best, but since she was coming off of a 10^th-place finish on June 20 at Woodbine, she went off at odds of 13.15-1. Third place Mrs. Del was also a mild longshot at 10.70-1 odds as she’d finished 11^th in her prior race. And fourth-place Simple Souvenir (44.50-1) and fifth-place La Bestia (39.45-1) were the 11^th and 10^th betting choices, respectively, in the 12-horse field.

The mandatory Jackpot Hi-5 payoff was boosted considerably when second betting choice City Fashion (2.45-1) faded late after stalking the pace to finish eighth. Winning players took home a payout of $13,727.24 on a 20-cent wager – a nice way to close out another lucrative day handicapping and betting the races at Woodbine.