Race #4 could be somewhat of an anomaly. The favorite #4 was well backed @ 1/2. I looked at the show pool. On the day the not so interesting races had show pool sizes of little over $30K. The pool sizes crept up to approximately $60K as the card progressed.

However Race #4 had a pool size of nearly $89K with some $59K (67%) on the favorite #4. To me this has the appearance of some insiders with deep pockets and a lot of confidence in [b]Made You Look[/b].

[u]Pure Speculation[/u] - The winning owner would receive $60K. They might choose to hedge using the trifecta rather than the exacta. i.e., a $40K-$50K show bet yields say $2K+ @ 5%.

A thousand dollars of tickets all/favorite/all and the remaining thousand all/all/favorite. After scratches a seven house field. So the tickets (6*5) = 30 divided into $1,000 = $33 of unexpected tickets. The 235/1 payoff results in
$7.7K.

In this fantasy someone this sophisticated probably balanced/prorated the bets with some target payout in mind. If the horse wins the insurance costs nothing.

Variations - The show bet could have been substantially smaller maybe 1/2 my example and the strategy could vary in consideration of the 2nd place purse. The availability of .50 trifectas and supers and super high five pools provide more tools and lots of leverage but involve the IRS.

So I watched the replay to see if anything about the ride and trip was curious. What I say is that if I had perpetrated such a scheme I would have been nervous. The little I saw in the replay didn't give me any confidence the #4 was going to finish itm in a congested field.

Let's Go Stable

p.s. - what's the over/under on players taking a knee prior to super bowl kickoff?