GP West's Friday Card; Rainbow 6 Considerations

The Gulfstream Park West meet will have a Rainbow 6 carryover of $4,081.42 on Friday.

It will be the third day in a carryover cycle. As we will note below, it might be a smart time to play the Rainbow 6 if you have a realistic and non-jackpot-like goal in what you can get out of the bet.

A lot will depend on whether races are kept on the   turf.  We will have an update later on Friday morning.
Gulfstream Park is holding the GP West meet at Calder Casino as part of a lease agreement.

There will be nine races Friday with first post of 1:15 p.m. The Rainbow 6 will be on races four through nine.  It is a 20-cents only per combination bet, with multiple horses permitted in each race and thus multiple combinations.

On Thursday there were three tickets with the winners of all six Rainbow 6 races. Each received $1,620.06. It came  on a day when all five races scheduled for turf were taken off that surface due to rain, leading to  numerous scratches.

Gulfstream pays out the full Rainbow 6 jackpot (all of the carryover plus 80 percent of the day’s bet) only on days when there is just one ticket with all six winners.

The carryover coming in on Thursday was $1,998.

Bettors added $8,682 to the pool.  Of that, Gulfstream took out 20 percent. It then divided 56 percent among tickets with the most winners (in this case six winners) and added 24 percent to the carryover.

The day’s eighth and last race was taken off turf after the start of the Rainbow 6. Thus, all three tickets that had the winners of the five previous races were given ALL in the eighth race. Deedeezee, the 2-1 favorite, won the race.

In the sequence, Mexicana won the fifth race at 7-1.  The five other winners were 5-2 or lower. The Rainbow 6 races had a combined 41 starters.

Amid all those chalky-sounding factors, only three individuals or groups were astute enough to hit the Rainbow 6 and it paid $1,620—very attractive especially considering the relatively small pool size.

That brings up the question of  “rather than waiting for the jackpot to grow before betting the Rainbow 6, why not get in early in a carryover cycle?”

At that stage (such as now), you won’t get a life-changing payoff.  But astute handicapping can lead to you hitting it, along with several other bettors, and sharing in a payout like that of Thursday.

Right now the carryover is  not large enough to make it worthwhile for syndicates  to come in with deep tickets of, say, $500 or more. 

Such tickets give them a calculated chance, and a better one than your $40 or so ticket, of having the only ticket with all six winners.  That “hit” ends a growing carryover in which astute smaller players can have a chance of being among multiple winners on days when there are not several bomber winners in Rainbow 6 races.

The publicity around the Gulfstream and GP West Rainbow 6 centers around hitting the”life changing” jackpot.  But despite the 44 percent takeout, a combination of smart handicapping and luck can produce a “buy a big ticket item” payoff on other days.    
– Jim Freer

GP West's Friday Card; Rainbow 6 Considerations