Horse Fan Scratches Out a $1-Million Win

America is still a land of opportunity for Rodolfo Sahagun, who immigrated from Mexico as a child, worked as a farm laborer most of his life, and went to the horse races Sunday and won $1 million.

Sahagun and his wife, Concepcion, picked nine out of nine winners in a Hollywood Park contest. His wife filled in a card that was presented to every person who entered the track, and then Sahagun scratched out some of her selections and substituted some of his own.

“I feel very happy,” Sahagun will reply sedately when asked in English how he feels about winning $1 million.

Although he slips easily from English to Spanish and back again, Spanish is the language in which Sahagun expresses himself best.

So when asked the same question in Spanish, the words come roaring out. “I jumped higher than a goat. I was jumping around and running back and forth . . . my wife made me calm down by saying they would announce who had won and then I would be sure.”

Sahagun came with his family to the United States when he was 12. He spent most of his life farming, but lost the plot of land he was tilling “a few years ago” when he couldn’t afford the lease.

Since then, he has been on welfare, doing odd jobs to stretch the monthly check of about $900. He also grows tomatoes on four acres of his landlord’s land, just a few hundred yards away from the rental home he shares with his wife and their four children.

Going to the race track is his only vice, says Sahagun, who doesn’t smoke and doesn’t drink. “My weak spot is the caballos (horses). My first weak spot is women, but I’m already to old,” said the 48-year-old winner.

Sahagun says he plans to buy a small ranch with his money, maybe 5-6 acres, “just to have something to entertain myself.” And he needs to replace a ’72 Volkswagen “which is pretty near gone.”

Sahagun, who quit school in the eighth grade, also says he wants to be able to send his children to college. “I want them to get a good education, so they won’t be a hard-working donkey like me.”

The family is behind one month’s rent on their modest house, with its tiny kitchen and three small bedrooms. He might take some of the winnings to buy a house, he said.

The Sahagun home is tucked away on a small hill here. A bicycle for each child is found on the front lawn, along with a cage for two doves, an old ironing board and some shelves.

Inside, large velveteen paintings, including one of the Last Supper over the dining room table, predominate.

“We have to give thanks to God and then to luck,” Sahagun said.

Neil Papiano, the attorney for Hollywood Park, said Sahagun may have won “the largest prize in the United States ever at a race track.”

The Sahaguns will receive $50,000 a year for the next 20 years, Papiano said. The race track’s insurance company is looking into the win to make sure the claim is valid, he said, because of the erasures.

“I’m convinced the erasures were made beforehand and everything was properly done,” Papiano said.

Sahagun was the first $1-million winner in the contest, which began this year, Papiano said. More than 2 million people have been handed the cards, but no one has ever selected nine horses correctly. Sunday’s crowd numbered about 47,000, he said.