7/8/2020
(Auburn, WA) There were many questions coming into race season #25 at Emerald Downs especially racing under these conditions with no fans in the building. The racing community did a great job in simply getting to a point of allowing racing under the Governor’s guidelines. But would betting on-line only work? Would Emerald Downs be able to fulfill it’s purse structure and maintain the number of racing days? How is the horse population and will it hold up? Will they be able to card 8-10 races daily? Will Emerald be able to stick out enough from other tracks to attract enough betters to make this work? The cool thing about this little quiz is it’s the same answer for each question…YES!
Ok, the answer is yes as long as the numbers keep going the way they are and that begins with betting handle. So far over 4 days there was a low of 1.64 million on day 1 and then a week later 2.1 million on Day 3. This is an average of 1.85 million per day and $190,000 per race. So betting on-line only has not hurt the betting pool in the least.
The next question is horse population and number of races carded and good betting races. In 4 days of racing they have had 3 cards with 10-races and 1 9-race for an average of 9.75 races per day. The horse counts have been 86 for opening day, 83 day 2 and then last week a bit of a hit with 73 and 63 but only 19 races in week 2.
The number this week are back on the uptick and we will see several horses who ran opening week back on the track helping the horse count. There were 152 entries over 20 races for this week for a grand total of 457 horses for the 6 days averaging a little over 76 horses per day and 7.7 horses per race assuming there are no scratches this week.
It looks like betters have been attracted to Emerald’s cards and they should be with numbers like these:
Average pay-out and odds for the following:
$2 Win $14.33 or 6-1
$1 Exacta $37.75 or 36-1
$1 Daily Double $39.22 or 38-1
50-cent Trifecta $142.15 or 283-1
50-cent Pick 3 $169.58 or 337-1
10-cent Superfecta $113.10 or 1,129-1
20-cent Pick 7 $$377.32 or 1,885-1
50-cent Pick 4 $1,260.04 or 2,519-1
50-cent Pick 5 $$1,516.05 or 3032-1
Biggest Pay-outs so far include:
$6,947 for a 50-cent Pick 4
$1,568 for a 50-cent Pick 5
$1,484 for a 50-cent Pick 3
$1,557 for a 50-cent Trifecta
$685 for a 10-cent Superfecta which was 1 of 2 Superfecta pay-outs due to a dead-heat for 4th. The other pay was more than $500 so combined it would have been over $1,200 for a 10-cent bet.
$145 for a $1 Daily Double
$140 for a $1 Exacta
$49.40 for a $2 Win
$27.80 for a $2 Place
$15.20 for a $2 Show
So the horses are running in the one and only Pro sport actually competing in Washington State. You can watch the races on-line at Emeralddowns.com or on TVG. There are several betting services you can sign up for and bet on the ponies and racing will remain Wednesday’s first race at 2:15pm and Thursday’s with first post time at 5pm. These days and times can be changed as the administration continues to follow the trends nationally to make sure Emerald remains in a good time slot locally and nationally. So far hats off as the numbers dictate they have done their homework.
Don’t forget to check out Larry the SportsCat’s Lucky picks for a little insight to the races and you can find his picks on this website. And we’ll see you at the track!! (virtually for now)
www.elisportsnetwork.com