by Brisnet.com
Santa Anita Park has announced the launch of a first-ever
Santa Anita Derby online contest patterned after the wildly popular March
Madness basketball bracket model, with winners to be determined according to the
outcome of the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby on April 7.
“We’re going to have four Derby pools or brackets, with eight horses in
each,” Santa Anita’s Director of Marketing Nate Newby explained. “Each bracket
will start off with the highest-rated horse available and will be filled out in
order of preference by horses who are less accomplished.
“For instance, our four top seeds at this point are: Out of Bounds, who won
the Grade 3 Sham Stakes here on January 7, Creative Cause, who won the Grade 1
Norfolk in October and was third in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, Fed Biz, who ran
lights-out going a mile in his first start against winners on February 9, and
I’ll Have Another, who won the Grade 2 Robert B. Lewis Stakes at a mile and a
sixteenth on February 4. Those four horses will be the number one seeds in their
respective pools.”
Newby explained that all horses would be evaluated and each bracket would be
assembled by a committee of experts, including Racing Secretary Rick Hammerle
and racing analysts from the Daily Racing Form (DRF)and HRTV.
“The way this will work is each player will be able to select one horse from
each pool and lock in a total of four horses for their own individual four-horse
bracket,” Newby continued. “There will be points awarded for wins, graded stakes
wins and placings in various races. The key for players trying to accumulate the
most points is to try and draft horses that aren’t ranked highly and hope they
out-run their early rankings.
“For instance, a win in a graded stakes is worth three points. If you draft a
horse who is ranked number five overall, and this horse wins a graded stakes,
you’ll earn the horse’s ranking times three, or 15 points. If you had drafted
any of the four top-seeded horses, you would only pick up three points, as they
are all seeded number-one.”
The winner will receive four tickets to the 2012 Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita
on November 2-3, along with a $2,000 win voucher on any horse in the $5 million
Breeders’ Cup Classic.
“We realize this is a brand-new concept for horseplayers and we’d like to
thank our web team at Salted Stone in Monrovia for helping us with the project
launch,” Newby said. “Mike Skeehan and his team have put a very user-friendly
website together and we think our fans are going to like it.
“We’d like to encourage everyone to register as they can pick up points this
weekend. There are some important Derby preps to be run, including the (Grade 2)
San Vicente here at Santa Anita on Sunday and the (Grade 3) El Camino Real Derby
at Golden Gate Fields on Saturday.”