National Best-Seven Wager to Make Debut Monday

The National Best Seven, a 50-cent wager in which a player tries to select the winners of seven races around the country, will make its debut Monday.

Hollywood Park and all its satellite locations will offer the bet, but the $500,000 Hollywood Turf Handicap, which was originally scheduled to be one of the seven races, won’t be in the package.

“We need the California Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Assn.’s permission to offer one of our races,” said Eual Wyatt, Hollywood Park’s general manager. “As of Thursday’s deadline, we didn’t have that. (But) we’re very close to an agreement.”

The races in the first Best Seven are the Metropolitan Handicap at Belmont Park, the Hilltop Stakes at Pimlico, the Great Lakes Handicap at Thistledown, the Washington Park Handicap at Arlington, the Barksdale Handicap at Louisiana Downs, the Memorial Day Stakes at Calder and the AKsarben Handicap at AKsarben.