Kentucky approves turf Pick 3, Super High 5 for Keeneland
The Kentucky Horse Racing Commission approved two new wagers for Keeneland’s upcoming fall meet Tuesday. The new wagers include a new Super High Five bet and an all-turf Pick 3.
The Pick 3 will feature a $3 minimum bet, according to Waqas Ahmed, the director of pari-mutuel wagering for the KHRC who introduced the proposal at Tuesday’s meeting, which was held virtually.
“This will be in addition to the older traditional Pick 3,” Ahmed said during the meeting. “This one’s only on turf races, so it won’t be three consecutive races. It will only be races on turf.”
Ahmed was responding to a question as to whether the current Pick 3 wager, which requires a 50-cent minimum bet.
According to Jim Goodman, director of wagering development for Keeneland, the wager, which will be given a name before the October meet, will be on the last three turf races of the day.
“The turf races are generally our best races of the day with the biggest fields,” Goodman told Horse Racing Nation.
There will be no minor pool or carryover for the turf Pick 3, and Goodman confirmed it will pay out every day. Keeneland will have a 15 percent takeout on the wager.
The wager will follow the same rules as Keeneland’s regular Pick 3, according to Goodman. He also said the plan for the wager was in the works before 2020, when race dates were rescheduled at Keeneland due to the pandemic.
“That’s a unique bet,” Goodman said. “I don’t think anybody’s done it before. I couldn’t find that anybody had done it before. We’re going to do a $3 minimum, so we’re hoping for some big payoffs.”
The other approved wager was a Super High Five, which will feature a $1 minimum bet. The bet had been a 50-cent minimum.
“As a racetrack I don’t like the jackpot,” Goodman said. “We did that for the Breeders’ Cup. They like the jackpot wager. We may do it again in 2022. But in ’21 we’re going to take the jackpot element out of it. That makes it a $1, 100 percent carryover.”
He said the move away from the jackpot will simplify the bet.
“It was really confusing to players I think, when you have a jackpot element, and you’re doing a rolling one,” Goodman said. “It’s hard to do graphics on TV. It’s hard to keep that information out there so the bettor doesn’t get confused, so we want to take it back to simple Super High Five.”
Super High Five wagering at Keeneland will take place only on races with more than seven betting interests.
The new wagers were approved unanimously by the KHRC.
The Keeneland fall meet is set to start Oct. 8, after Churchill Downs concludes its fall meeting, and will include racing mostly Wednesday through Sunday. The meet will end Oct. 30 after 17 scheduled race dates.