Stars, sales and seeds. Week three of Saratoga Race Course was marked by remarkable efforts by divisional stars planting the seeds of current championships while the upcoming week will be focused on older stars and the yearling sales - planting the seeds of future championships.
The older sprint division found its leader when four-year-old Jackie’s Warrior humbled an overmatched field in the Alfred G. Vanderbilt Stakes despite carrying a 127-pound impost. He is expected to run twice more before his retirement to stud – at Saratoga in the upcoming Forego on August 27 and then the Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Keeneland Race Track the first weekend in November.
An hour later the three-year-old colt division found its leader when Epicenter proved an impressive winner in the Jim Dandy while showing a new dimension - coming off the pace. Epicenter avenged his Preakness loss to Early Voting and with the Jim Dandy win is now the likely Travers’ and three-year-old champion favorite.
Sunday’s card set the seeds of the two-year-old filly championship when Prank – a half-sister to Belmont winner Mo Donegal - made her initial start, running off from her competition to an impressive win. Purchased last year at the Keeneland September Yearling Sale for $500,000 due to her breeding and confirmation, the Todd Pletcher trainee already appears to be a bargain. As impressive as her speedy debut was her breeding suggests she will get better as the distances increase.
This upcoming week will again highlight stars with the Whitney Handicap being run on August 6 for older horses going a distance followed by the Saratoga Sale at Fasig-Tipton on Monday and Tuesday August 8 and 9 where yearling purchasers plant the seeds for future championship campaigns.
The Whitney, which is among the most important races each year, marks the true August beginning of the Saratoga season. With domestic and international buyers in town for the high-priced sales – it has something for everyone – and with that in mind I put forth a proposal for consideration – something for the bettors - and appropriately, it involves seeds.
The advent of account betting has led the various betting platforms to provide rebate schemes to reward bettors for their loyalty. The New York Racing Association’s platform – NYRABETS - has been increasingly creative and inventive in its promotions providing bettors with financial incentives to make particular bets. These promotions are targeted, inventive and an effective way to direct new and existing customers to certain betting pools. One such recent promotion provides an extra $10,000 to be shared by the winners of the late Pick 5 on a certain day. This is referred to as “seeding” a certain pool of bets.
Racing has an opportunity to build on this ingenuity by “seeding” the win pool of certain high-profile prestigious races beginning with the Whitney. “Seeding” is simple – the racetrack operator adds money to the pool to be split among winning bettors thereby effectively increasing the winnings paid to bettors. This currently happens regularly, via Pick-6 carryovers, (although in those instances the “seeding” is done by losing bettors on previous days) and has resulted in huge increases in handle on carryover days.
I propose the Win Pool be seeded as I have always thought the primary object of the sport is “winning the race.” This focus has been obscured over time with the proliferation of exacta, triple and superfecta wagers and too often the winner becomes secondary to the overall order of finish in the minds of bettors - even though posterity is reserved for the winner.
Seeding the Win Pool would provide a financial incentive for bettors to focus on Win betting and reward those that picked the actual winner of important races.
My proposal is to seed the Whitney next year by adding $500,000 to the Win pool for the race (representing approximately, a doubling of the expected win pool). While this initially seems to be a dead cost borne by the New York Racing Association, it could replace advertising expenses as this novel approach would be widely discussed, dissected and reviewed by both racing and mainstream media.
If the addition of this “dead money” in the pool has the same effect in increasing handle as Pick 6 carryovers have had, the increased handle would partially offset the cost. Running the “seeded” race earlier in the card would enhance the likelihood that the seeded money would eventually be bet back into other races thereby increasing the daily mutuel handle through what is known as “churn.” This proposal will be met with initial skepticism and regulatory approval would be required, but effectively reducing the takeout (possibly below zero) for select races is likely to increase interest and handle on the race and surrounding card. A novel approach that rewards bettors who handicap the winner of special races a few times a year could prove to be good publicity and good business. Plant a seed and it may grow.
