A Handicapper’s Seventh Heaven : Breeders’ Cup: It’s the National Pick-7, a grand experiment in wagering with what should be a grand payoff.

Drive 15 miles east of Portland, Ore., on Interstate 80, go toward Rooster Rock until you get near Fairview--it has a post office--then start searching for the tiny town of Wood Village. It’s there you will find the Multnomah Kennel Club.

Why, you ask?

As horse racing prepares for its biggest day and its grandest experiment--the National Pick-7 with a betting pool expected near $15 million--there is no better place than the Multnomah Kennel Club.

It all comes down to money, and it’s guaranteed that this dog track, in simulcasting the Breeders’ Cup, will have the nation’s largest payout--if there is a winner in Oregon. It will pay more than Churchill Downs, which will pay more than Santa Anita.

That the payout will vary from state to state underscores the complexity of trying to put together a single parimutuel bet that has the appearance of a national pool. Add to that the fact that horse racing, as a rule, can’t agree on anything and on the surface you have a disaster waiting to happen.

On inspection, however, it’s clear that the National Pick-7 has been planned to exhaustion.

The most critical aspect of this plan is trying to comply with every state law regarding what must be taken out of every wagered dollar. For example, for every dollar bet in California, 20.09 cents will be taken off the top and distributed among the track, state and horsemen. In Kentucky and Florida, 19 cents will be taken off and in Oregon, only 18.5 cents--lowest in the country. Wyoming is the highest at 25.9 cents.

Three-quarters of the pool will go to those who pick all seven winners. The rest will be paid to those who pick six.

So, if about $13.33 million were bet nationwide--making the first-place pool $10 million--and there were 10 winning tickets, one would be worth $815,000 in Oregon, $810,000 in Kentucky and Florida, $799,100 in California and $741,000 in Wyoming. Because of this, all tickets have to be cashed where they were bought.

“We’re expecting three busloads of people to come down from Washington,” said George Dewey, president of Multnomah Kennel Club. “Some are saying we may have as many as 1,200 people, but I doubt we’ll have that many. I think there will be about 800.”

Multnomah also will be the host track for 12 other smaller satellite betting facilities--mostly restaurants and bars such as the Red Steer Inn--in Oregon.

The payouts wouldn’t vary, state to state, if the mutuel pools were commingled. Were that the case, the money bet at the satellite facility would go directly into the mutuel pool of the host track, just as if all the bettors were there.

For instance, money bet at Hollywood Park and Los Alamitos is commingled and goes into the mutuel pool at Santa Anita during the Oak Tree meeting.

The ultimate goal is to have a commingled pool on a national level, but tote companies--which make the machines that punch the tickets and talk to the computers--don’t have the technology yet.

Nevada casinos will be the only out-of-state facilities to be commingled with Churchill Downs, giving them the advantage of the Kentucky takeout rate of 19%.

“I think the major syndicates and big gamblers will go to Vegas,” said Cliff Goodrich, president of Santa Anita. “We will lose some business because of the takeout (being lower in Nevada). It only makes sense.”

John Vidmar, manager of the race book at Caesars Palace, agrees it should be a big day.

“Nevada is a better players’ market,” Vidmar said. “We have full track odds in addition to the Pick-7.”

Vidmar expects the state to have its largest day, surpassing last year’s Breeders’ Cup day, when $5 million was bet.

Bettors at Santa Anita and Southland satellites won’t be paid the same prices as Churchill Downs on individual races. Instead, the payouts will be based on the money bet at Santa Anita and its satellites.

Generally, Southern California bettors favor horses that have raced here, such as Bertrando and Bag, in the Juvenile, and Twilight Agenda and Marquetry in the Classic. So, if those horses win, the Santa Anita payout probably will be less than that at Churchill Downs. However, Southland bettors favoring East Coast horses probably will get more at Santa Anita than at Churchill Downs.

Only in the case of a scratch will Southland bettors be at a major disadvantage. If a bettor’s horse is scratched, the bettor automatically will be given the Churchill Downs--rather than Santa Anita--favorite in its place.

“We will inform the bettors (who the Churchill Downs favorite is) as soon as possible,” Goodrich said. “But it probably won’t be until after the race starts. That’s likely to cause some confusion.”

The confusion on the National Pick-7 has been anticipated by David Sweazy, director of operations at Churchill Downs and the person who is trying to make this plan work.

He has lined up 92% participation among tracks across the country, using 40 originating tracks and 500 outlets. The only states not taking part are Kansas, Michigan, New Jersey and Washington--none of which allow betting to cross state lines.

The National Pick-7 war room has been equipped with 15 fax machines, a bank of telephones--all with call waiting--and three independent computer programs to calculate the payouts. One program will be manned by a representative of the accounting firm of Coopers and Lybrand, one by a Churchill Downs programmer and the third by the person who is the programmer for Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Here’s how it will work:

--When betting for the National Pick-7 is closed, five minutes before the first race or about 9:10 a.m. PST, the host tracks will determine how much has been bet at their track and satellites.

--The information will be verified and faxed to Churchill Downs. Each fax will include the signatures of an independent auditor, an official of the track, the mutuel manager and the tote operator.

--Upon receiving the information, Churchill Downs will check the signatures with those they have on file and begin putting the data into the three computers.

--When the seventh Breeders’ Cup race is over, about 12:45 p.m., each host track will fax a count of the number of winning tickets bought at their track. This fax also will have four signatures.

--The three computer programmers will then enter the number of winners into their computers, where a state-by-state payoff will be determined.

--The state-by-state payoffs will be announced. If the payoff is so large that a smaller track can’t pay that much, money transfers will be wired to that track between 9 and 9:30 Sunday morning.

Officially, Breeders’ Cup representatives say, the payouts will be available about four hours after the final race. However, Sweazy said he would be disappointed if it took more than two to 2 1/2 hours.

“There are only two things that can go wrong,” Sweazy said. “The first is if only about $4 is bet on the races, and we know that’s not going to happen. And the other is an act of God, such as a major power outage, in one of the major cities like New York or Los Angeles.

“We’ve run mock test after mock test after mock test, and while we expect some problems, we hope we’ve planned for all of them.”

All of which brings one to the ultimate question. How can you be sure to win?

There’s only one way, and that’s to bet every horse in every race. The cost: a mere $60,217,344.