ARCADIA — Pick-six carryover. Those used to be magic words around California racetracks. And on occasions like this Friday afternoon at Santa Anita, they still can be.
After no bettors connected the winners of the final six races at Santa Anita last Saturday and again last Sunday, 30% of the money wagered was paid out to those who connected five and the remaining 70% from each day carried over, meaning that gambling in the pick-six on Friday’s races 4 through 9 will start with $198,741 in the pool.
Santa Anita estimated that new money will bring the Friday pick-six pool to about $1.3 million, helped by the fact fans have had five days to prepare.
It’s all just about enough to stir the souls of horseplayers who remember the glory days of the pick-six in the 1980s and 1990s, and even some who are younger than that.
“Is there still excitement around a two-day carryover in the pick-six with the opportunity to make some serious money? Of course. Is it the same as it was back in the day? Obviously not,” said Tyler Hoffman, a successful handicapping tournament player who’s in his 30s. “I’ll still play it. It’s worth taking a shot.”
The double carryover of nearly $200,000 is the biggest at a Southern California racetrack in nearly a year.
“I don’t think a single-day carryover creates much buzz at all, especially when SoCal carryover pools are sometimes as low as $25,000-$30,000,” said Bob Ike, proprietor of bobikepicks.com and a host of the Thoroughbred L.A. radio show. “(But the) two-day carryover will create some buzz because now we’re talking a significant amount of money.”
The pick-six was modeled on the “5-10” at Caliente racetrack in Tijuana, which challenged horseplayers to connect the winners of races 5 through 10. It made its U.S. debut under the name “Hollysweeps” at Hollywood Park in Inglewood on May 1, 1980. Hollywood Park was taking advantage of new bet-collecting technology to embrace the multi-race wager a few months before staid Santa Anita would do it.
In those days before the advent of the California lottery, Hollywood Park executives imagined frequent multi-million-dollar pick-six payoffs, and in that era when you had to be at the track to bet, they envisioned enormous crowds chasing instant riches. At the same time, skeptics warned the big investments bettors would have to make to cover all of the combinations they wanted would reduce the amounts put into easier-to-hit win, place and show wagers, robbing the track of the profits derived from parimutuel “churn.”
By the end of Hollywood Park’s 1980 season, attendance and betting were up 25%.
At Santa Anita, the record pick-six payoff is $3,120,256.80 for a single perfect ticket, purchased at a wagering hub in New Jersey, on Feb. 18, 2008.
“(A) carryover created buzz from all over the country and was probably the greatest marketing tool available to tracks,” Ike said.
But a lot has changed to dilute the pick-six’s impact in California. It found homes in other states. Some places sullied the brand by dropping minimum bets below the traditional $2, and by starting a “jackpot” version in which most of the pool is paid out only for a single perfect ticket. Race fields shrank, creating more predictable racing, leading to smaller payouts and fewer big carryovers. Well-funded, computer-assisted bettors took bigger shares of the pools, suppressing payouts. Other multi-race wagers – pick-threes, pick-fours, pick-fives – came along and proved popular.
The biggest recent huge carryover in California actually came in a pick-five, a $329,773 one-day carryover at Del Mar last November.
Nowadays, more sports fans may think of a “pick-six” as an interception that gets returned for a touchdown than as a tantalizing racetrack wager.
Santa Anita’s pick-six has a high, 23.68% takeout. That’s softened, though, when a carryover deposits free money into the pot.
“I think the term ‘pick-six carryover’ still has some charisma,” said horse owner, handicapper and Thoroughbred L.A. co-host Jon Lindo. “Sure, with all of the added rolling bets there are more chances to win a lot by betting a little, but a pick-six carryover to me means there is dead money already in the pool that reduces the takeout playing the wager.”
The pick-six Friday includes small fields and potentially short-priced favorites in the races 4 (Bandolero) and 6 (Tiger Fire), a tricky battle in race 8 between Bob Baffert-trained maidens (Winston Ave and Cherokee Nation), and three more competitive races with full fields.
Could it produce an even larger, three-day carryover into Saturday’s races?
Those definitely would be magic words.
THIS WEEKEND
Suspensions for Juan Hernandez (seven days) and Hector Berrios (three days) allow the jockeys to ride only one race at Santa Anita this week, but each has a shot to make it count in Saturday’s Buena Vista Stakes, a Grade II turf mile for fillies and mares.
Berrios has 9-5 morning-line favorite Thought Process, back from a layoff for trainer Phil D’Amato and returning to the distance of her San Clemente Handicap win at Del Mar, while Hernandez has 7-2 Vibez, trying to reverse a photo-finish loss to 5-1 Princesa Moche (Mirco Demuro aboard) last time out.
They’ll all have to out-game 3-1 Grand Slam Smile, who’ll have Kazushi Kimura aboard for the first time as the hard-hitting California-bred seeks her first graded-stakes win.
Hernandez’s suspension, through Sunday, was handed down by stewards at Sunland Park in New Mexico after he and Bottle of Rouge won the Sunland Oaks last Sunday. Bottle of Rouge swerved and caused trouble for third-place Pashmina. There was no disqualification.
‘NO’ TO THE NORTH
The latest attempts to revive thoroughbred racing in Northern California were rejected by the California Horse Racing Board in a public meeting in Arcadia on Wednesday.
Applications to hold a startup meet at the Tehama County Fair in Red Bluff in May and restart the historic Humboldt County Fair meet in Ferndale in August were shot down by 4-2 votes, with one board member absent.
At the 2½-hour meeting called solely to consider the applications, the fairs’ bids were opposed by representatives of Southern California thoroughbred tracks – the only ones running in the state since 2024 – as well as trainers’ and owners’ trade groups and animal-welfare activists.
“They have no chance of success up north,” CHRB chairman Greg Ferraro said before the votes.
Opponents said racing up north would take needed purse money away from the south, though not all ruled out letting the north try again if and when the south achieves stronger economic footing.
“We would like to see horse racing return to Northern California – someday,” said Bill Nader, president and CEO of Thoroughbred Owners of California. “That day is not today.”
DERBY UPDATE
Baffert’s roster of potential starters in the May 2 Kentucky Derby lost a good one when Plutarch was declared off the Derby trail this week. Baffert told the Daily Racing Form’s David Grening that Plutarch came out of his breakthrough win with jockey Florent Geroux in the Feb. 7 Robert B. Lewis Stakes at Santa Anita “a little body-sore” and has been reduced to “light training.” The son of Into Mischief was the 27-1 10th choice of bettors in the round of Derby future wagering that closed on Feb. 15.
Litmus Test – on the shorter list of Baffert’s most promising 3-year-olds along with Brant, Boyd and Potente – will be one of the horses in the spotlight on the biggest weekend of Derby qualifying-points races so far in 2026.
Sunday’s 1-1/16-mile Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn Park in Arkansas is a chance for Litmus Test (Flavien Prat riding) to confirm the quality of his Los Alamitos Futurity victory in December.
Saturday’s 1-1/16-mile Fountain of Youth at Gulfstream Park in Florida has Grade I winner Napoleon Solo (Kendrick Carmouche) making his first start since October.
Aqueduct, in New York, runs the Gotham on Saturday. Iron Honor (Manny Franco) looks to jump from maiden winner to Derby qualifier.
SAFETY WATCH
The death of Garden Party, a California-bred 5-year-old mare who fell was injured and fell on the dirt crossing in a downhill turf sprint on Sunday, is the sixth this year in racing and training at Santa Anita and the eighth at Southern California tracks. The Santa Anita figure is the most at Santa Anita from Jan. 1-Feb. 25 in any year since the CHRB began posting horse deaths in 2020, and the total is above normal for the region in the period. Los Alamitos’ two deaths in racing and training are a little below average for the period.
WORLD VIEW
The 5-year-old sprinter Ka Ying Rising, the world’s top thoroughbred in some rankings, won his 18th race in a row in last Saturday’s Queen’s Silver Jubilee Cup at Sha Tin Racecourse, breaking the record for a Hong Kong-trained horse that he had shared with Silent Witness. The 3½-length victory with jockey Zac Purton lowered the Sha Tin record for 1,400 meters to 1:19.36.
Follow horse racing correspondent Kevin Modesti at X.com/KevinModesti.
SANTA ANITA LEADERS
Through Sunday
Jockeys / Wins
Juan Hernandez / 27
Kazushi Kimura / 26
Emisael Jaramillo / 21
Armando Ayuso / 18
Umberto Rispoli / 15
Mirco Demuro / 14
Edwin Maldonado / 13
Hector Berrios / 13Trainers / Wins
Doug O’Neill / 20
Bob Baffert / 16
George Papaprodromou / 15
Mark Glatt / 14
Jeff Mullins / 13
Michael McCarthy / 13
Phil D’Amato / 10
UPCOMING STAKES (SANTA ANITA)
Saturday
• $100,000, Grade II Buena Vista Stakes, fillies and mares, 4-year-olds and up, 1 mile on turf
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