I mentioned several weeks earlier that my home track of Emerald Downs added a $0.50 Pick 5 to their betting menu this year, a fairly significant addition to their exotic wagering options.  Despite the fact that exotic wagers at smaller tracks can get a bit chalky at times and are greatly dependent on field size, the Emerald Pick 5 has provided some decent value opportunities, especially when there is a carryover. Like the Pick 3s and Pick 4s at Emerald, you need to look for the right sequence of races and field sizes, but that's true in almost any sequence at any track.

Last week, the Sunday Pick 5 included a carryover from both Friday and Saturday, and produced a 5-for-5 winning payout of $5,615.75. The sequence on Sunday featured winners at the following odds: 4.70/1, 6.50/1, 2.90/1, 5.60/1 and 0.70/1.  There is nothing crazy with that progression of winners but the sequence still produced a healthy $5.6k return, which was much, much better than the $3,741.31 you would have brought home if you simply parlayed the sequence.

The Thursday Pick 5 involved no carryover (and a much smaller pool) but paid $4,997.70 to a single winning ticket.  The fact that anyone hit Thursday's sequence is utterly amazing given the fact that the five races included a 28/1 and a 47/1 winner. The parlay for the Thursday sequence was...ahem...$250,813.44.

The two payouts illustrate the benefits and the downsides to multi-race sequences at smaller tracks.  A downside is that the smaller pools usually depress the return (in relation to the parlay) on the rare sequences where massive long-shots come home.  That's not unique to only small tracks but you tend to notice the difference a bit more.  On the upside, the possibility of taking down an entire pool are much greater at a small track due to fewer players getting involved in the sequence.  Furthermore, the addition of a carryover situation, like the one at Emerald on Sunday, effectively neutralizes the take while still allowing a player to grab a large share of the total pool.

Here are some links to various items making news around the world of horse racing on this Thursday afternoon.

North America

Select field of five entered for CCA Oaks - Handicappers' Edge
Leadership in the three-year-old filly ranks is up for grabs in Saturday's $250,000 Coaching Club American Oaks (G1) at Saratoga.

NBC Sports Saratoga Coverage Begins July 23 - BloodHorse.com
The NBC Sports Group’s seven straight weekends of "Summer at Saratoga" coverage begins Saturday, July 23, with live coverage of the TVG Coaching Club American Oaks (gr. I). The program, from 5-6 p.m. ET on NBC, will include the CCA Oaks for 3-year-old fillies as well as one undercard race.

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RUNNING UPDATE: The Pick Six is off and running at Gulfstream where the even money favorite, 4-In Perpetuity, comes home strong to take the first leg.

-The run of low priced winners finally comes to an end in the 2nd leg as a 9/1 shot 1-Sincerest scores at 5 furlongs on the turf.

-The third leg, a pretty ugly $25k Maiden Claimer, saw 2-Majestic Toy (4/1) upset 2/1 favorite 10-Double Delicious.  The race saw a blanket finish of about five horses at the wire, a sign of the fact that nobody really wanted to win.

-Unlike the past few days, we're seeing a decent amount of non-favorites win during the Pick Six sequence, but I don't know if there's been enough big prices in order to produce a carryover after the fourth leg (8th race) is won by 1-Hoopla at 7/1.  I'd be surprised if there aren't quite a few tickets still alive, although a big price in the last couple of legs could make it interesting.

-Right One (FR), making his first start in North America after running in France, closes well under Julien Leparoux on the outside to take the 9th race and 5th leg of the Pick Six.  Favorite 5-Army Scout tires in the lane after chasing the runaway speed in the early stages of the race.

At 4/1 Right One is the fourth consecutive winner to pay more than $10.

-Favored 6-Perfect Cherokee takes the nightcap at Gulfstream Park keying off another carryover in the Rainbow Pick Six.  Tomorrow's sequence will feature an $828,165 carryover.

6-of-6 today paid 1,672,67 for $0.10.
5-of-5 in the Pick 5 paid $2,677.70 for $0.50.

ORIGINAL POST: The Rainbow Pick Six at Gulfstream went unhit (again) this afternoon, keying a $789,100 carryover into Friday's card.  Today's consolation paid $924.90 for five-of-six.  As a comparison, the $0.50 Pick Five paid $2,325.55 for five-of-five and $17.40 for four-of-five.

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-Leg 1 gets off toe a big start as 7-Hyphen pulls the upset at 8/1 over the heavy 3/5 favorite, 10-Suave Jazz.

-Not a good start to the day for jockey Paco Lopez.  In race two he finished 3rd with 3/5 favorite 4-Upfrontndangerous and in race 4 he finished dead last with 3/5 favorite Suave Jazz.  Two odds on favorites and nothing to show for it.  Not good.

-Leg 2 comes up chalky as the first-time-Wolfson horse, 1-Bella Moneta, wins for fun at 5/2.

-More of the same in Leg 3 as the 6/5 favorite, 4-Aim and Fire, clips heels in the early part of the race, re-established himself, and came again in the stretch to score by almost two lengths.  Aim and Fire was tons the best in this race after an awful trip.

-It looks like this Pick Six is going to carryover into Thursday as it's been a parade of favorites since the first race.  8-Adios Charlie and 11-Dixie's Sandals are the third and fourth straight crowd picks to win.

-Another winning favorite (10-Choice Play), the fifth straight on the day, keys a $749,637 carryover into Thursday's Rainbow Six.

ORIGINAL POST: I spent some time going through the PPs for today's Pick Six carryover at Gulfstream Park, a sequence that looks either really, really hard or really, really easy.  Several of the fields contain short-priced horses that appear to be very strong contenders while the last two on the card seem to ripe for a couple of bombs.  Below is a quick look at the sequence.

(UPDATE: Lots of changes after significant rain in south Florida.)

-In the first leg (4th race), 10-Suave Jazz (5/2) runs first time off the claim for Nick Canani and is coming off a win at this level last time out.  Canani is 46-for-135 (34%) over the last five years with horses running first time after a claim (69% ITM).  Suave Jazz appears to be one of the more solid favorites in the sequence.

-The second leg (5th race) is one of those brutal turf dash affairs that seems to find their way in to every Pick Six, Five and Four sequence.  Like the first leg, this field features an first-off-the-claim horse for a trainer that excels with that move.  1-Bella Moneta (5/2) finished second in an open company $32k claimer last time out, a race in which he was claimed by Marty Wolfson from the the above mentioned Nick Canani.  Wolfson rarely claims horses but when he does, watch out; he's 8-for-15 with the move over the last five years (53%) with a huge $2 ROI of $6.34.  When Wolfson claims a horse, they are ready to run next tie out.

-The third leg of the Pick Six has a little more uncertainty than the other two races (as most low-level maiden claimers do), but still contains a low-priced favorite that stands out on paper.  4-Aim and Fire (8/5) hasn't come close to winning any of his three previous starts but each of those were against much stiffer competition (he debuted against Maiden Special Weights and the ran twice against $50k maiden claimers).  He's taking a severe price-cut and faces off against a field that has shown little in their previous efforts.

-Like the previous races, the fourth leg again features a low-priced favorite that looks really strong when compared to the rest of  his rivals.  8-Adios Charlie (5/2) debuted against Maiden Special Weight company way back on October 2nd at Belmont Park where he missed by a length at the wire against a decent group of juveniles.  The show horse came back to win a Maiden Special Weight at Gulfstream on March 12th, while the winner finished 5th in a pair of graded stakes races (G2-Nashua and G2-Tampa Bay Derby).  If Stanley Hough has Adios Charlie ready to run today (and he's decent with layoff horses), he'll be tough to beat.

-The fifth leg (8th race) begins the first of back-to-back turf routes - one with the rail at 24 feet, the other at 84 feet.  Unlike the previous four races, this race might just be a spot where you can catch a bit of a price.  10-Sounds Familiar (7/2) grabs morning line favoritism but he's by no means a lock in this spot as he's stepping up to $50k N2L after just missing against the same condition at a $30k price tag.  If you don't think the favorite can get it done the race becomes wide-open, full of horses that possess a mix of positive and negative attributes:  

• 7-Aregulartionhottie (10/1) ran well in his first try on grass last time out but he'll try two-turns for the first time.  
• 6-Ithinkihadthatone (6/1) ran well against N1X-ers last spring but she's been off since May 29th.  
• 11-Dixie's Sandals (4/1) looked good breaking her maiden at Gulfstream on March 5th and might have found the perfect spot to post a quick 2nd win.

-The final leg of the Pick Six is, in my opinion, a brutally tough field of $30k N3L claimers, many of which are sporting very poor lifetime records.  In an almost throwing-darts-at-the-board philosophy, I like the chances of a couple of fillies in this spot, both of which are an awful 2-for-26 lifetime.

2-Miss Olivia Rae (6/1) will try this level for the third straight time after losing by a length and a half her last two times out.  In both of those races she showed a very quick turn of foot in the closing stages (29.19 and 28.25 splits for the final 3/16ths).  I don't love deep closes with the rail out at 84 feet but there appears to be enough pace to soften up the field by the time they turn for home.

The 10-Choice Play (3/1) lost by a brutal 39 1/4 lengths last time out but that race was against $100k claimers and on the main track.  She's 2-for-26 lifetime and it's hard to get behind any mare with those numbers, but she's dropping down to her lowest claiming level and she's shown signs of life against this class-level in the past.

If the first few races of the sequence turn out as chalky as they look on paper, we are probably looking at another carryover situation for Thursday.

I originally planned on taking a shot at Wednesday's Pick 5 at Gulfstream Park, but after going through the PPs several times I realized I had very few good ideas as to how to attack the sequence.  Four of the five races were on the lawn, which I love to see in a multi-race bet, but I just couldn't zero in on enough contenders to come up with a strong and affordable ticket.  Thursday's card was much of the same and had a few too many maidens in the mix to pique my interst.  Friday, however, is a different story.

Perhaps the most interesting race of the five in the sequence is the 2nd leg/7th race, a $16k Maiden Claimer for three-year-olds at seven furlongs on the main track.  I'm calling this race the "Fire Sale Race".

Below is a snapshot of five of the entries comprising this 10-horse field:

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At the start of the 2011 Gulfstream Park meet, the track introduced $0.50 Pick 4s (both early and late), along with a new $0.50 Pick 5 in place of the old, discontinued Pick 6.  I've been tracking the payouts and pools from these bets from early January in order to compare the bets on a meet long basis*.  The three table below provide a snap shot of each of those bets after thirty-eight days of racing at the current Gulfstream meet. (January 5th to February 24th).

*I also tracked the Rainbow 6 data for a while, but it was so inconsistently reported in the charts in terms of pools and carryovers that I just gave up.  Note to Equibase and track officials - please report data consistently.

The Early Pick 4 has brought in about half the total pool of it's late card brother and, correspondingly, has produced average and median payouts roughly half as large.  The Early Pick 4 has certainly been a bit more chalky that the later version, with the median odds for each leg maxing out at 9/2 as opposed to the max median of 6/1 on the Late Pick 4, but there has still been opportunists to bring home a decent return on occasion, especially if you're able to keep ticket costs under control.

A $0.50 Pick 4 with a median payout of over $1,100?  Even if you're putting $100 into the play you're generally getting pretty good results on the back end.  The new $0.50 Pick Five has received most of the attention at Gulfstream, but the Late Pick 4 is still taking in a good amount of cash and paying out well to those fortunate enough to run the table. 

There's been a lot of talk about takeout within the industry over the past couple of months and how much of an impact the pari-mutuel tax has on handle and betting decisions.  And while there is no doubt that the effect on churn and overall handle is real, the impact on betting choices of players is a bit less clear cut. 

Gulfstream's Pick 4 has a take of 20%, while the take on the Pick 5 is 15% - a significant difference.  Yet, despite this huge gap in take between the two bets, the Late Pick 4 has out handled the Pick 5 in both average ($20k more) and median (over $50k more) throughout the meet.  Part of that is likely due to the added difficulty in hitting the Pick 5 as compared to the Pick 4, as well as the additional cost that the Pick 5 usually entails - which is really the whole point: people make decisions on which tracks and bets to play on a multitude of factors and the take is just one of those.  If the majority of players made decisions based solely on the pari-mutuel tax, we wouldn't see the Gulfstream Late Pick 4 out-handling the Pick 5 on a daily basis.  But that's exactly what has taken place during this meet.

Discussions about take and betting choices aside, the Gulfstream Pick 5 has been a really great bet this meet, in my opinion, and I am surprised that it isn't handling as much as the Late Pick 4.  Check out the chart below which illustrates solid average and median payouts across the board.  Again, we're talking a $0.50 base bet with a median payout of almost $5,000 - that's really nice. 

To hit the Pick 5, you're generally going to have to find one or two races in the sequence where you either a) love a long priced horse, or b) can spread enough to ensure you don't miss out on the price horse that is almost guaranteed to come in.  If you check out the Gulfstream Payouts file (Gulfstream Park Payouts 2011), I've highlighted in yellow all of the $20 horses in the Pick 5 this meet.  As of February 24th, only 13 of the 38 Pick 5s saw an entire sequence go by without at least one horse winning at odds of 10/1 or greater.  Ten times there have been more than one 10/1 winner.

*The Low Pick 5 payout is the lowest non-carryover (non-consolation) amount.

The $0.50 Pick 5 at Gulfstream has gone unhit the last two days at the south Florida track, triggering a $172,000 carryover into today's sequence.  Today's Pick 5 will begin with race six at approximately 3:25 Eastern time (12:35 Pacific).

Today's Pick 5 sequence will involve the following races (and the field size of each):

Race 6: Maiden Special Weight (turf), 5f, 4up, F&M (9)
Race 7: Maiden Special Weight (turf), 8f, 3yo, (12)
Race 8: $10k Claiming, 8f, 4up (11)
Race 9: Allowance (turf), 11.5f, 4up, F&M (11)
Race 10: Starter Allowance (turf), 8.5f, 4up (12)

Get your turf handicapping on for this one as three four of the five events are scheduled to go over the lawn, including an allowance event at 1 7/16 miles...a bit of an odd distance.  

The Pick 5 kicks off with a turf sprint which is sort of a good news/bad news situation for me.  The bad news is I can't pick a turf sprint winner to save my life.  The good news is that I'll probably be out of the Pick 5 fast enough to avoid the agony of losing later on.

(The last race of the sequence provides an opportunity to play the old "last time vanned off" angle with the 12-Empty Handed.

I'll be spending the morning handicapping and mapping out my ticket as I plan on being firmly involved in this sequence.  

UPDATE #1: The second leg of today's Pick 5 is a study in power trainer angels.  Take a look at some of the numbers popping up for this 1 mile MSW on the lawn:

1-War Clan: Kiraran McLaughlin is 8-for-20 (40%, $5.11 $2 ROI) with 61-180 day layoff horses returning in MSW events on the lawn.

5-Artisanal: Todd Pletcher is 10/28 with 180+ layoff horses returning in MSW events on the lawn.

6-Caution Sign: Christophe Clement is 3-for-5 at Gulfstream this spring in MSW turf races.

It would appear that a ticket without any of those three would be quite vulnerable.

The fourth leg, the 1 7/16th mile turf race, has a very interesting 1st time North American runner, 8-La Luna de Miel (GER), that can't be ignored.  The pedigree on this filly is stamina, stamina, stamina...and some more stamina.  She'll face formidable opponents in the 4-Silk Route and the 10-Up in Lights, two fillies that finished 2-3 in a 12f N1X at GP last time out.  

UPDATE #2: A very tricky sequence; I went deep in the first leg due to it being a very even turf sprint.  Leaning on the Motion horse in the 4th leg, with tickets to the Leparoux and Desormeaux mounts, as well.  

Omi's Vindication won the first let at 7/1....a good start for me since I had her on my ticket.  One down. 

UPDATE #3: I'm four deep in the 2nd leg - 1, 5, 6, 11 - but have a lot more flexibility if the 1, 5, or 6 win, as opposed to the 11.  

UPDATE #4: I was really hoping the 5-Artisanal would get up but the 1-War Clan will do just fine in the second leg as it keeps me alive to just as many tickets as Artisanal.  War Clan was the clear favorite at 9/5 and you could see why in mid-stretch when he easily split foes to draw off and win. 

I'm four deep in the 3^rd leg - 4, 5, 6, 9; if the 6 wins, I'll be alive five by four in the final two legs.  If any of the other three win, I'll need my top choice to come home in at least one of the last two races.  The 6 will be the clear favorite, likely right around 7/5, but at this point it's about staying alive to the most tickets in the final legs.

UPDATE #5: It's a tough game for a reason; 7/5 favorite 6-Coach Ryan comes up empty at the top of the stretch and 4-Pressure couldn't handle just that from 8-Huff'n Hughes in deep stretch to crash down my Pick 5 dreams.  Huff'n Hughes wins at odds of 6/1 which when combined wit the flop of the 7/5 favorite will eliminate a lot of Pick 5 tickets.

UPDATE #6: Anytime I write about the fact that quality European horses are consistently ignored at the windows in the U.S., think of La Luna de Miel (GER) who was much the best in her first N.A. start at Gulfstream Park in a 11.5 furlong turf event.  This filly was bred to run all day long and did just that to score at odds of 8/1.

The win bet on La Luna de Miel helps to lessen the loss in the Pick 5 but it's also a twist of the knife in my back knowing that I had this filly as one of my top choices in this leg yet I couldn't get through that damn dirt race in the 3rd leg.  Agggh!

UPDATE #7: A quick rundown of today's winners in the Pick 5:

Race 6: 3-Omi's Vindication [$16.60]
Race 7: 1-War Clan [$5.80]
Race 8: 8-Huff'n Hughes [$14.40]
Race 9: 8-La Luna de Miel (GER) [$19.80]
Race 10: 13-Paster's Bad Habit [$11.00]

5-of-5: $7,104.20 ($0.50)
4-of-5: $56.60 ($0.50)

UPDATE #8: 13-Paster's Bad Habit breaks alertly, guns it to the front and rolls to a wire-to-wire win to close out the Pick 5 at Gulfstream Park.  

While my Pick 5 died an untimely death, all was not lost - the 4-of-5 consolation paid $56.60, which I had four times.  So at the end of the day I had $226.40 come back to me, lessening the sting of getting knocked out in the 3rd leg.  I would have rather had the $7,000 that Pick 5 paid out to 5-of-5.

Gulfstream Park's new Rainbow 6, or $0.10 Pick 6 that only pays the entire pool when there is one unique winner, went un-hit for the first 17 days of the 2011 meet, creating a carryover that topped out at $194,331.  Not a bad sum for a Pick 6 that generates about $20 to $40k each day.  Finally, last Thursday (1/27) a player cashed the single winning ticket necessary to take down the entire pool and the $221,677.41 payout.  

Considering that the Rainbow 6 only pays the full pool on a single ticket one would think that last Thursday's score came in a sequence that produced a couple of bombs sprinkled throughout the leg.  In the case of last Thursday's payout, that's pretty much what happened.  Below is a recap of the winners of last Thursday's sequence:

Leg 1: 12/1
Leg 2: 13/1
Leg 3: 15/1
Leg 4: Even
Leg 5: 7/2
Leg 6: 7/1

While the back half of the sequence produced reasonably priced winners, the first three legs (legs in which a lot of players tend to play singles in order to spread deep at the end) all produced horses to win at greater than $20.  And there really isn't anything unusual about that - for a Pick 6 to hit to only one ticket we would expect either a huge bomb in the mix (50/1 or higher), or a parade of big prices.  Kicking off a sequence with three $20+ horses certainly counts as a "parade"

It took 17 days for someone to take down the Rainbow 6 for the first time but only three more for the second single ticket winner as Sunday's Rainbow 6 paid out sum $32,846.35 to a single player.  Sunday's sequence included the following results:

Leg 1: 7/5
Leg 2: 4/1
Leg 3: 9/1
Leg 4: 6/1
Leg 5: 5/2
Leg 6: 7/1

Nothing is easy in the world of betting on horses, and picking six straight winners is a challenging task, even for the best handicappers.  On the other hand, doesn't it seem a bit odd that only one player hit the above sequence?  Unlike the previous payout, this doesn't have a single horse at odds of 10/1 or higher.  In fact, if you look back at all the Rainbow 6 sequences for the meet ( Gulfstream Park Payouts 2011), you'll see days where there were multiple high priced winners but multiple winning tickets.  In comparison, Sunday's sequence was a much easier path to navigate (relatively speaking).  It's a strange result, to say the least.

I don't know how deep the winning ticket went last Sunday, but I'll take a guess that his or her dime play wasn't huge.

There is not simpler way to kill the payouts of a Pick 6 than to throw a dead heat situation into the mix, and that's what happened in the fourth leg of yesterday's $500k carryover at Hollywood Park as Our Shorty and Mesa Thunder could not be separated at the wire.  

The entire sequence turned out to be fairly formful with the exception of the first leg where Knockout Artist (8/1) pulled an upset while 9/5 favorite Fire Break simply didn't show up.

There were a couple of "almost" upsets on the day: 2/5 favorite Nostalgic Bid held off 12/1 Boomtown in the final strides to win by a head at the wire, and Dawnie Macho outlasted 20/1 first time starter Izshelegal to prevent any serious bombs from coming home.

Race 4: Knockout Artist - $17.40
Race 5: Ten's Salty Sally - $5.20
Race 6: Nostalgic Bid - $2.80
Race 7: [DEAD HEAT] Our Shorty - $8.00, Mesa Thunder - $9.40
Race 8: Dawnie Macho: $7.00
Race 9: Stormin Rae: $9.00

Pool: $2,192.724
6-of-6: $5,543
5-of-6: $72.20