As a pick six day goes, so goes racing

We went to the racetrack last week, looking for a story about a widow who couldn’t pay the rent, or a father of five kids who lost his job to cutbacks by corporate creeps.

It was a gorgeous fall day, there was a big pick six carry-over at Hollywood Park, and hope sprung eternal.

All somebody had to do was pick the winners of races Nos. 3-8. There was already $541,201 in the kitty, because nobody picked the six winners in those races Saturday or Sunday.

For the horse bettor, it was a perfect setup. No racing Monday or Tuesday, time to study the Racing Form and the likelihood that the carry-over would attract bets worth more than $2 million to further sweeten the pot.

What a great chance to dramatically change somebody’s life -- and maybe the image of a sport.

It has been a bad year for the sport of kings.

On Feb. 17, Bob Lewis died, and only now is racing beginning to realize how much he brought to the table in the last 15 years. Lewis, along with wife Beverly, owned Triple Crown near-misses Silver Charm in 1997 and Charismatic in ’99. Lewis spent money, took chances, dazzled the media and charmed an entire industry. With Lewis around, racing didn’t need to spend a dime on promotion, just to get him in a room with people carrying cameras and notepads.

That same day in February, Roy Chapman, owner of 2005 Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Smarty Jones, also died. Smarty Jones was a popular horse, a good story.

In May, the Kentucky Derby was won by a wonderful horse named Barbaro. This time, talk of a Triple Crown winner, something the sport has been lusting for since Affirmed last achieved it in 1978, seemed legitimate. But in the Preakness, Barbaro broke down before he had run a quarter-mile and the ambulance taking him away got more TV time than race-winner Bernardini.

Barbaro is alive today because of extraordinary medical efforts. Some wonder if those efforts aren’t driven by a sport desperate for silver linings.

The always-upbeat, late-summer meetings at Saratoga and Del Mar attracted the usual good fields and devoted fans, but horses started breaking down almost from the start at Del Mar. When the seven-week meeting ended, 17 had been put down.

In the Breeders Cup at Churchill Downs Nov. 4, a filly named Pine Island shattered her left front leg, tossed off jockey Javier Castellano as she went down, and brought another nationally televised pall to the sport. Pine Island was euthanized immediately.

Later, in the big race, the Breeders Cup Classic, Bernardini, ridden by a banged-up Castellano and owned by one sheik, was upset by Invasor, owned by another sheik, the brother of the first. That’s nice for the gross national product of the United Arab Emirates, but it speaks to the huge gap between the $2 bettor and who is benefiting most from that $2 bet. Making donations to foreign billionaires does not engender a desire to come back the next day and do it again.

So, this quiet Wednesday afternoon at Hollywood Park seemed like the place to be if the tide were to turn, if the law of averages were to kick in and all of racing might be a winner.

Any large pick six payoff brings a buzz. And any large pick six whose recipient gives the sport a moment of public prominence is worth the promotional dollars. Doesn’t happen often, because most winners run and hide from charity solicitors, deadbeat family members or ex-spouses. But it happens.

In July 1982 at Vancouver’s Exhibition Park, there were three winning tickets, each worth $735,403. One winner was horse owner Peter Wall, who was part of a group that reportedly spent $30,000 on his multiple-combination bet. A second was a group from a small British Columbia town that invested $70 to get the winning combination. The third was a single ticket, bought by an elderly couple, who paid $4.

In May 1997, a single ticket for a Hollywood Park carry-over was worth $758,233, and was won by an 88-year-old veteran horse player named Edward Bain. Bain, who made the bet sitting in a bar in Oregon City, Ore., made a mistake on the last race, picking a 43-1 longshot named Lightsofthenorth instead of the race favorite.

Mike Mooney, director of publicity at Hollywood Park, recalled the day in June 1997 when a 70-year-old man called his office to say he had won the pick six the day before and was coming in to collect. He said he was calling Mooney’s office because he had made his picks based on the information Mooney’s office had had provided in the daily program, and he wanted to thank them.

“He walked away with $700,000,” Mooney said. “I’m sure he was on a pension, that this changed his life.”

Mel Stute, a veteran trainer, remembered his biggest pick six hit. It was back in the days of Caliente, when the Tijuana track called it the five-10 (fifth through 10th races). Stute and three others shared a ticket that hit for $110,000.

“They left ahead of me and I went and got the money,” Stute said, laughing. “When I went to cross the border, they were up on a hill, watching for me with binoculars. My three best friends and they were still making sure.”

On this day, in the bowels of the racetrack, Bob Poole, director of pari-mutuels, sat amid a bank of TV monitors, three wall phones, two computers, a cellphone and a direct walkie-talkie to the race stewards. Within seconds of the windows closing on the last pick six bets before the third race, Poole squinted at a computer and declared:

“Here it is: $2,185,888,” he said. That was the total bet on the pick six at Hollywood Park, plus 180 betting sites all over the country.

In the final race of the pick six, the main chances to eliminate lots of winners were Cichetari Miss, a 42-1 shot, and Gifts in Excess, 29-1. But when Victor Espinosa guided Valley Storm across the finish line first, at 9-2, the pick six became a national cash call. In the end, there were 157 winning tickets, each worth $11,177.60.

Not much life-changing there.

In the near-empty stands outside, Stute held a ticket that would have given him five of the six and paid $144.80, but his horse faded down the stretch.

“But I had one of those 50-cent superfecta tickets,” he said, “and that paid $281.”

To which his wife responded, dryly, “Didn’t get him even.”

Much the same could be said for the sport of racing on a pick-six day that began in hope and turned ordinary.