By Jim Freer and Barry Unterbrink
Gulfstream Park will have a Rainbow 6 carryover of $4,181,511 this afternoon.
The 11-race card has a first post of 12:35 p.m. The Rainbow 6 starts on the sixth race, with scheduled post of 3:05 p.m.
Today and Friday will be the final two days before Saturday’s mandatory payout of the day’s pool and full carryover–no matter the number of winning tickets.
Today’s Rainbow 6 races have 59 entrants, including main track only and also eligible.
Four of those races are scheduled for turf. There is a 40 percent chance of thunderstorms between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. in the area around Hallandale Beach where Gulfstream is located.
Barring lengthy downpours, it is unlikely that Gulfstream will be forced to move any scheduled-for-turf races to the dirt track.
The carryover is second largest in Rainbow 6 history, trailing one that reached almost $6.4 million in May 2014.
It keeps growing because Wednesday was the 50th straight day without the jackpot-hitting requirement of just one ticket with the winners of all six Rainbow 6 races.
Wednesday’s Results
On Wednesday there were multiple winning tickets, each paying $908.04. By our calculation, there were 458 such tickets.
The carryover coming in was $4,003,307. Bettors added $742,680 to the Rainbow 6
That was second highest for the Rainbow 6 in its current carryover cycle. The largest was $823,493 this past Saturday March 19.
Wednesday’s Rainbow 6 betting was 11 percent of the total handle of $6,815,954 for the 11-race card.
Gulfstream has a 20 percent takeout on the bet. On days with multiple winning tickets, such as Wednesday, it divides 56 percent among winning tickets and adds 24 percent to the carryover.
Wednesday’s $908.04 payout was relatively small for the Rainbow 6, but still an IRS reporting event.
Bladerunner, at 12-1 in the 11th and final race was the only winner at higher than 5-1 in a Rainbow 6 race.
If the carryover extends until Saturday, we are among those who expect that betting on the Rainbow 6 could be as high as $10 million that day.
There are 82 entrants, including AE and MTO for the six races on the Saturday card.
The March 26 payout date is based on schedule requirements.
Gulfstream will end its winter championship meet on Sunday April 3 and begin its spring meet on Wednesday April 6.
Florida rules prohibit a pari-mutuel from extending a carryover from one meet to another.
Sunday March 27 is Easter and Saturday April 2 is Florida Derby day, when huge handle is already a certainty. Thus, this Saturday is the obvious day for the mandatory payout.
Carryover History
The scene is similar to May 2014.
The carryover coming into Sunday May 25 was $6,397,286. A mandatory payout was scheduled for the next day–Memorial Day.
Gulfstream was counting on another carryover on May 25, and huge betting the next day.
But on May 25 the since deceased Dan Borislow won the Rainbow 6 jackpot for $6,678,939.12. He did that with a $7,600 bet that had all runners in five of the races and two horses in the other race.
There no doubt are some syndicates planning bets similar to Borislow’s on Thursday and Friday with a goal of taking down the whole carryover before it would be split on Saturday.
But in that case, some whales and syndicates might duplicate each other’s bets–resulting in multiple winning tickets and thus a continuation of the carryover into Saturday.
