Horse Racing / Bill Christine : Dropping of Pick Six at Santa Anita Has Many Bettors Upset

Dave Black of Arcadia is among hundreds of racing fans bemoaning the decision by Santa Anita to discontinue the Pick Six bet when the track opens its season next Monday.

There has even been talk of a boycott at the betting windows to protest the dropping of the Pick Six, but the odds are a million to one against that happening. Horseplayers have suffered greater indignities than the loss of the Pick Six--for openers, try the 20% tax on every dollar bet other than for win, place and show--but they keep coming back for more.

Black, such a rabid racegoer that he has attended the last five Kentucky Derbies and all five Breeders’ Cups, says that he has the signatures of 300 horseplayers who want the Pick Six retained, and he knows of another group of protesters that has collected 600 signatures.

“Without people like us, there’s no race track,” Black said. “We should have a voice in what goes on at Santa Anita.”

Caliente had already initiated a form of the Pick Six before Hollywood Park introduced its version of the bet in 1980, and Del Mar and Oak Tree at Santa Anita also adopted the wager later in the year.

The Pick Six has been used by Southern California tracks ever since, but Santa Anita, saying that it wants wider distribution of payoffs among bettors, is now substituting a second Daily Triple instead of the Pick Six.

At the current Hollywood Park meeting, there are two Daily Triples plus a Pick Six. Santa Anita and Hollywood both have the Pick Nine. The Daily Triple really ought to be called the Pick Three, because it asks a bettor to pick the winners of 3 straight races.

“It’s easier to select 3 winners than it is to pick 6,” says Cliff Goodrich, Santa Anita’s general manager. “A second daily triple will mean more fans with winning tickets.”

The Pick Six was an instant success in California, sometimes accounting for 8-10% of the total handle, and has since been used by other tracks around the country. The bet is a double-edged sword, however, because betting syndicates have been known to swoop into town when a carry-over reaches $1 million or more. Syndicates buy large numbers of tickets, something the average horseplayer can’t afford.

Even when a small bettor hits a large Pick Six payoff, tracks aren’t overjoyed, because it’s likely that much of the money won’t be bet back. The churn factor--bettors reinvesting money they have won--is important to tracks.

Santa Anita has experimented with various ways of paying winners of the Pick Six, and in 1986 the track eliminated the carry-over, which kept part of the bets in the pool for the next day if no bettor picked 6 winners. Santa Anita officials say that interest waned in the Pick Six even before the carry-over was discontinued.

Joe Harper, the general manager at Del Mar, says his track has no plans to drop the Pick Six.

Santa Anita is also putting a $500,000 ceiling on the Pick Nine, which means that there will be an automatic pay-out of the entire pool the day after the carry-over reaches that amount, even though no one may have picked 9 winners.

“For their apparent concern for the financial health of their fans, we applaud (Santa Anita),” Rick Baedeker wrote recently in the Baedeker racing news letter. “ . . . (But) why eliminate the Pick Six, a seemingly popular play among most players, but keep the Pick Nine, which only becomes attractive to players when the carry-over reaches the $1-million mark, the possibility of which no longer exists? Is it up to a handful of race track managers to decide what is good for the betting public, or should the public be given what it wants?”

Black says that he attends the races almost every day at Santa Anita and has hit about 30 Pick Sixes, including one worth $111,000.

“We’re not big bettors and we don’t care about the syndicates,” Black said. “For $200, a small bettor can still put together a pretty powerful ticket. The main play I make when I go to the track is the Pick Six, and it’s the same for a lot of other people. Santa Anita hasn’t said much about dropping the Pick Six, and I’ll bet a lot of people don’t know. They’ll try to make their bets and be in for a big surprise when the track opens.

“Santa Anita introduced the Pick Nine and Hollywood Park started the Pick Six. I think Santa Anita doesn’t want to drop the Pick Nine and keep the Pick Six because that would be admitting that their idea was bad and Hollywood Park’s idea was good.”

Santa Anita officials will be monitoring the effect the new betting options have on their handle.

“After a while, if there looks like a demand for the Pick Six, we can always put it back in,” one of them said.

Gene, the 5-year-old gelding who was bought a couple of years ago for $150, won a race at Tampa Bay Downs last Saturday for his 15th victory of the year and has been named claiming horse of the year by the Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Assn.

Gene earned $52,000 this year, adding 3 second-place finishes and 2 thirds to his 15 wins in 23 starts. He leads the country in wins for 1988.

Gene’s win Saturday was in an allowance race, which is a step up from the claiming ranks. The horse has had leg problems throughout his career.

“This is the biggest win I’ve ever had,” said owner-trainer Gary Patrick after Saturday’s race. “The horse hadn’t run in 2 1/2 months, and I thought after his last race that he was done. I didn’t ever think that I’d get him ready to run again.”

Trainer Rusty Arnold has several good 2-year-olds in his barn, and one of them, Traskwood, won his third straight race, the 1 1/16-mile Nashua at Aqueduct last Saturday.

Traskwood, a son of Believe It, is owned by Ed Anthony, whose favored Demons Begone bled in the 1987 Kentucky Derby and failed to finish the race.

Traskwood, who has been winning despite having trouble getting away from the gate, suffered his only loss in his first start, at Aqueduct on Oct. 19. With the regular jockeys on strike in New York, Arnold had four options with other riders and one of them, Chuck Baltazar, didn’t make it to the track in time because his plane was late. Traskwood was ridden by an inexperienced substitute rider and they finished third.

Have sire and son ever run against each other?

It almost happened recently at Turfway Park, the track near Cincinnati where Income Tax and his son, the 4-year-old Income Time, were both entered in the same race. Income Time ran and finished far back. His sire, who was on the also-eligible list, didn’t draw into the race.

Income Tax, a 12-year-old who won a few stakes races early in his career, was once trained by Jack Van Berg. He was an unsuccessful stud, getting only a few mares in foal over several breeding seasons and was gelded this year before his return to the races.

The day after the Income Time race, Income Tax ran for the first time since 1982 and finished 10th.

Horse Racing Notes

Great Communicator, who won on an off track in the Breeders’ Cup Turf last month at Churchill Downs, may get another soft course Saturday in the $500,000 Hollywood Turf Cup, which is the closing-day stake at Hollywood Park. Likely to face Great Communicator are Pay the Butler, winner of the Japan Cup, and Nasr el Arab, who won the Burke Handicap at Santa Anita. . . . Momentus, who somehow survived a terrifying accident at Hawthorne in September, 1986, won for the first time in 12 starts and 19 months in a race for $62,500 claimers at Hollywood Park Sunday. Momentus needed 178 stitches and suffered 4 broken ribs and a knee injury when he jumped the rail and broke the eighth pole in half in the Hawthorne Juvenile more than 2 years ago. Momentus, who has now won 2 races since the accident, finished 14th in the 1987 Kentucky Derby.

If he stays sound, Creme Fraiche could be around as long as John Henry. The 6-year-old gelding, who had been 1 for 11 this year, won Saturday’s Tropical Park Handicap at Calder to push his career earnings to almost $4 million. It was the 17th win in 59 starts for the 1985 Belmont Stakes winner. Only Alysheba with $6.6 million, John Henry with $6.5 million and Spend a Buck with $4.2 million are ahead of Creme Fraiche on the money list. . . . Trainer Wayne Lukas announced after Box Office Gold had won the Tempted Stakes Sunday at Aqueduct that his barn had broken its own record for purses in a year. The Lukas outfit set the record last year with $17.5 million.

“Stretch Drive,” which profiled jockeys Bill Shoemaker and Corey Black, won the 1988 Eclipse Award for best local television coverage of racing. The program was shown on KCET-TV. Other winners were “Racing Across America” for national television and WAVG in Louisville for radio. . . . Herman Smith, former Oak Tree official, is the new chairman and Gino Roncelli is the new president of the Winners Foundation, which helps race track people with drug and alcohol problems. They replace the late Lou Rowan. . . . California-based Clover Racing Stable has bought a 50% interest in Prized, a recent 8 1/2-length winner against maidens who is scheduled to run in the $150,000 Tropical Park Derby at Calder on Jan. 14.