THOROUGHBRED RACING : A Big Day for Two Have-Not Tracks

Last week, on the day before the pick-six handle grew to a record $6.6 million at Santa Anita, Canterbury Downs in suburban Minneapolis received a phone call from a man in Lexington, Ky.

“A friend of mine in Los Angeles wants to go out to Santa Anita tomorrow, but he’s sick,” the man said. “Can you fax me the entries?”

Entries received, the man in Lexington and his friend in Los Angeles handicapped the pick six, and the next day the Kentuckian was on a plane to Minneapolis, to bet Santa Anita races via satellite at Canterbury.

The Lexington-Los Angeles connection bet a $7,000 pick-six ticket, and although it didn’t produce six winners, which would have been worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, at least the two bettors cashed a couple of five-winner consolation tickets. That reduced their losses for the day to about $800, not counting airfare.

That same day, four horseplayers from Cleveland drove the 90 minutes to Mountaineer Park in Chester, W. Va., where they bet a $1,344 ticket on the Santa Anita pick six. They held one of the eight winning tickets on the pick six, which was worth $469,885, and they also cashed 24 consolation tickets, good for another $74,664. At Canterbury, a bettor who invested $360 had one winning ticket and 11 consolations, for a payoff of more than $500,000.

The biggest payoff of all was at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, where a bettor collected $1.1 million for two winning pick-six tickets and 55 consolations. It isn’t known how much this bet cost.

The strange part about Santa Anita’s pick-six madness on Jan. 23 was that only two of the eight winning tickets were cashed at the track, where most of the money was bet. There were four winners in Nevada, besides the single winners in Minnesota and West Virginia.

Pick-six bets at Mountaineer Park totaled $77,000, which was only 1% of the overall pool, and at Canterbury Downs $173,000 was bet on the pick six, which was 2 1/2% of the pool.

Bringing the Santa Anita races to Mountaineer Park, where the racing programs are studded with $1,500 claiming horses, and to Canterbury Downs, where the ground resembles the tundra at this time of year, demonstrates the new marketing technology, which is the last gasp for many have-not tracks around the country.

“I think this is where many of us will wind up, commingling our bets with the pools at four or five racing centers where the live racing is held,” said J.G. Preston, a spokesman at Canterbury. “We’re always hearing the complaints about too many sore horses because there are too many racing dates. This is a way that tracks can avoid those pitfalls and still stay in business.”

Santa Anita used to be a minority partner in Canterbury, where the debt has grown to about $45 million since the track opened in 1985. Daily attendance averaged 13,000 that opening season, with betting averaging $1 million. Last year, those figures had dropped to 6,000 and $700,000, and now there is greyhound racing in nearby Wisconsin.

Mountaineer Park, which was called Waterford Park until new ownership changed the name in 1987, is located 40 miles from Pittsburgh, and despite snow and chill, the track races more than 200 days a year. Purses may run just under $20,000 for an entire nine-race card, and many of the horses are literally a step away from the rendering plant. Last summer, Mountaineer horsemen were talking about how horseflesh had reached 40 cents a pound.

The California Horse Racing Board didn’t give Santa Anita permission to pipe its races to Mountaineer until Jan. 12. Five days a week, Mountaineer runs a live racing card, with about 20 minutes between races, which is almost 10 minutes faster than the average. This enables the track to finish nine races in time for the second half of the doubleheader, the telecast from California.

On Jan. 23, a day when then was no live racing at Mountaineer, about 350 people, most of them afflicted with a Santa Anita strain of pick-six fever, crammed into a 200-capacity room at the lodge on the track grounds. The room has betting machines, television monitors and state video lottery games, which track officials never refer to as slot machines. The games the machines offer resemble Keno, that popular Nevada casino pastime.

Mountaineer is the headquarters of trainer Dale Baird, the quintessential big fish in the small pond. Starting in 1971, Baird has led the country in victories seven times, and has saddled more than 5,400 winners in his career. But just one horse’s winning purse in a Breeders’ Cup race surpasses what Baird’s 90-horse barn earns in an entire year.

One day, though, even Dale Baird took a back seat to another trainer at Mountaineer. On Feb. 24, 1979, J.C. Williams saddled eight winners, which is believed to remain the national record.

That might also have been the biggest thing to happen at Mountaineer until last week, when those four bettors used the Santa Anita races for a tidy score. The Cleveland quartet had a right to be harmonizing all the way home that night.

Horse Racing Notes

Bayakoa, carrying high weight of 128 pounds and to be ridden by Laffit Pincay, will face only four opponents Saturday in the $150,000 Santa Maria Handicap at Santa Anita. The others in the field are Little Brianne, 117 pounds; Somethingmerry, 114; Luna Elegante, 113; and Formidable Lady, 112. Bayakoa won the race last year. . . . On Sunday, a small field is likely for the $150,000 San Pasqual Handicap, with Flying Continental carrying 122 pounds for his 1991 debut. Quiet American, who has been assigned 120, would have received the same weight had his trainer, Gary Jones, elected to ship him to Florida for the $500,000 Donn Handicap at Gulfstream Park a week from Saturday. Starting high weights in the Donn are expected to be Rhythm, 121 pounds, and Primal at 120.

Fly So Free, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Belmont Park last November, makes his debut as a 3-year-old on Saturday in the seven-furlong Butcheson at Gulfstream. Jose Santos will leave Santa Anita to ride him. Also in the 10-horse field are To Freedom, who is undefeated in five starts, and Richman, who has won seven of 10 races. . . . Unbridled, winner of last year’s Kentucky Derby and Breeders’ Cup Classic, will miss the Donn because of a bruised foot and may not run until April 13 in the Oaklawn Handicap at Oaklawn Park.