Turning 3-to-5 into 4-to-5

The good news is I managed to "hit" the Colonial Downs all-turf stakes pick 5 on Saturday; the bad news is my return on investment was 4-to-5.

My "A" selections won the first, fourth, and fifth legs while a "C" came home in leg two and a "B" in leg three. I structured the ticket so that three of four "A" selections could win, and I was lucky to catch value in the second leg when 19.80-to-1 Winslet won the Tippett Stakes but not so lucky to catch a price in the Kitten's Joy when six deep. Favored Vanquisher won at 2.7-to-1 but on the bright side I didn't have Target Sighted anyway.

Both Check the Label and Paddy O'Prado were much the best in winning the graded stakes on the day to close out the pick five, which returned $419.70 for $1. Of course, I put more than a $1 into, so my return wasn't 418-to-1 but 4-to-5.

There's good and bad things about that:

The good:

• A $1 parlay of win prices in the sequence would have returned $315.23, so the pick five improved on that by 33.14%
• All three of my "A" selections were 3-to-5 so a win wager on any ONE of those would have returned less than the pick five did
• The pick three ending with Paddy O'Prado paid $14.40 for $1 (13.4-to-1) and while that WAS 50% more than the win parlay for those three races it would have taken a $29 pick three to equal the pick five payout and that was unlikely considering a "B" won the tenth race (third leg of P5, first leg of P3)

The bad:

• Sure, 4-to-5 is better than 3-to-5, but a parlay on three consecutive winners at 3-to-5 pays 3.1-to-1 not 4-to-5 so I definitely feel as if I left some value on the table by getting three of four singles home.
• I was doubled and tripled up on certain combinations that included horses I wasn't in love with. I spent nearly as much covering Stately Victor as I did Paddy O'Prado and should have pressed more on tickets that included Z Appeal, Check the Label, and Paddy all winning. Adding another 20% to my ticket's cost meant I would have hit it for $2 and then we're at least talking about 9-to-5 instead of 4-to-5.

I really enjoy the nuances of multi-race wagers and am thankful many tracks have embraced them for players of all backgrounds. The $2 pick six still remains out of my reach on almost all days of racing, but multi-race wagers (especially in the pick four and pick five range) with $.50 and $1 minimums are a great way to tackle a card.