HORSE RACING: TIME TO PUT ON YOUR POKER FACES.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI Horse Racing

As the Fairplex Park horse races go on outside, the Los Angeles County Fair holds Thursday afternoon poker tournaments at tables set up on the third floor of the little grandstand in Pomona. For racing promoters, it's a case of, If You Can't Beat `Em, Join `Em.

In the battle for the gambling dollar, horse racing might be the coldest game around, and poker certainly is the hottest.

So, what should horse racing learn from poker's popularity?

Based on conversations with racetrackers - and a personal wish to see racetracks become fashionable again - here's a two-paragraph summation of what poker is doing right and racing is doing wrong.

Poker has succeeded in convincing everyday people that they can waltz into a card room and start winning big money in simple and honest games in which all the information you need is there on the table. That might be false, but it's the impression you get by watching the edited highlights of final-table tournament action that fill the poker shows on cable television.

Racing has been able only to convince everyday people that a trip to the track means a losing battle with a prohibitive pari-mutuel takeout and insiders possessing crucial information about which trainers cheat and which horses are hobbling. That might be an exaggeration, but it's what you'd take away from this year's headlines about milkshake positives and Sweet Catomine's belatedly disclosed health problems.

Let's put faces on the difference.

The personality who launched the poker boom is the conveniently named Chris Moneymaker, an Internet poker player who had never played in an over-the-table tournament before he won $2.5 million in the 2003 World Series of Poker.

Meanwhile, the best-known horseplayers of recent years are the trio of cheats who landed in prison after abusing their access to a tote computer system to change bets after the fact and claim $3.1 million in payoffs on the pick-six at the 2002 Breeders' Cup.

What can racing attempt to do to lure back those fans who may have switched to poker?

--Lower the takeout. California fans must pay 15.43 cents on the dollar for win-place-show bets and 20.18 for exotic wagers. Yeah, try telling state government, track management and horsemen - the beneficiaries of that takeout - that the percentages should be cut. But until they find a way, players face an obstacle to winning that dwarfs card players'.

--Clean up the backstretch. As long as fans have to be wary of horses' form reversals caused by undetected doping, they can't bet confidently. Funny, but on ESPN, with little cameras revealing poker hands, you never hear a player complain about marked cards.

--Teach the game. On-line tutorials, to help novice handicappers decipher the Daily Racing Form, should be more plentiful and better advertised by racetracks. A lot of good poker players such as Moneymaker learn the ropes online and anonymously, protected from the embarrassment of screwing up in front of experienced opponents.

--Put some glory into it. The only famous horseplayers are public handicappers and those who write books. Maybe somebody could do a ``reality'' show following the ups and downs of a group of one or more professional handicappers. Think how much good it would do if TV viewers actually saw a horseplayer winning every now and then. Of course, this wouldn't be as easy as aiming a camera at a single table of poker players.

--Promote the gambling side. Most racetrack publicity, newspaper coverage and TV center on the ``sport'' (horses and jockeys trying to win major races) rather than the ``game'' (you and I trying to pick those winners). But 99 percent of racetrack regulars are drawn by the tote board. Notice that poker promoters put out very few news releases celebrating the King of Clubs' rise to prominence.

It says here that horse racing is - or still can be - the greatest gambling game of all, because the intellectual challenge of handicapping, the varied betting menu and the colorful action on the track create the possibility of the richest financial and psychic payoffs.

But gamblers will go where they think they have the best chance to win and have fun doing it.

Right now, as the comparison to poker illustrates, a lot of work must be done to convince gamblers that the racetrack is the place to be.

--Breeders' Cup watch: Last weekend's big winner was Saint Liam, whose easy victory with Jerry Bailey in the Woodward Stakes at Belmont Park stamped the 5-year-old as the favorite for the Oct. 29 Breeders' Cup Classic, also at Belmonmt.

Commentator, who upset Saint Liam in the Whitney Handicap, was softened up by a pair of rabbits and finished a distant third in the Woodward, a result that might push him out of the Classic and into the Breeders' Cup Sprint.

With Bellamy Road hurt and Afleet Alex unlikely to return in time, Saint Liam's main worries now are Santa Anita Handicap winner Rock Hard Ten and Travers winner Flower Alley.

--This weekend: Two-year-olds take the spotlight at Fairplex Park, in Saturday's $125,000 Barretts Debutante and Sunday's $125,000 Barretts Juvenile, and at Belmont, where Saturday's $300,000 Futurity and Sunday's $300,000 Matron should identify Breeders' Cup baby-race contenders.

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BY KEVIN MODESTI