Pegasus proves it’s dollars that makes sense

HALLANDALE – Saturday’s winner tried to talk the way we talk in sports. Club Liv groaned and shrieked to one side. Popped champagne corks echoed from the

$1,250-a-seat Flamingo Room. Howls of celebrating fans came through the rain after the

$9 million Pegasus World Cup was just won.

“I don’t care about the money,’’ trainer Michael McCarthy said in the seconds afterward on national television after his horse, City of Light, won the feature

event at Gulfstream Park. “This horse is a gift. Amazing.”

He had tears in his eyes and, asked why he was so emotional, he immediately struck closer to the truth. He delivered the money quote.

“Nine million reasons.” There’s no need for pretense here. Saturday was the coldest, crassest, most wonderfully raw event of sports capitalism. NBC began its coverage with shelves and shelves of bundled $100 bills. The pertinent stat, you see, wasn’t about times or records but obscenely stacked dollars.

That $9 million purse in the Pegasus dirt race was followed in the planet’s sports for purses only by the $7 million paid to the Pegasus turf race.

This, then, is the day that makes you think there’s a future in horse racing. And you don’t need to even understand horse racing. You don’t, for instance, have to wonder what jockey Javier Castellano said about City of Light, “giving a good ride,” and what that statement might imply about strategy and competition.

You just have to realize City of Light earned $4 million on Saturday. The U.S. Open tennis tournament is the richest twolegged event in the country, paying $3.8 million. The winner of the turf race, Bricks and Mortar, was the third-richest payout to the winner at

$2.8 million.

That’s just scratching the real money. Saturday’s betting handle was a crisp

$37.7 million, deflated by the rain from last year’s $41 million. But next year that betting total could double if race plans work accordingly. And, again, the race isn’t about the horse race.

Gulfstream executives flew the Japanese horse, Aerolithe, on a 21-hour flight at round-trip expense of $480,000 to compete in Saturday’s turf race. Why?

“For the future,’’ track general manager Billy Badgett said. “It was important to get the ball rolling [with Japan]. We needed to show this could be done. All the reports were the flight over went very well.”

Next year, Japan could simulcast the event.

“That would mean at least $30 million more [betting],’’ Badgett said.

This is only the third year of the Pegasus, and it’s still inventing itself.

It falls on the racing calendar just before the stud season. Meaning, this is the final race for the best horses to market themselves before a lifetime of debauchery.

The first winner of the Pegasus, Arrogate, gets

$75,000 for every live foal. The second year’s winner, Gun Runner, makes

$70,000 a shot.

At an average of 150 foals a year, that puts each annual income around $10 million.

“This day is more marketing for them than anything,’’ Badgett said.

And you ask: What made 12 horse owners crazy enough to pay the

$500,000 entry fee to enter Saturday’s Pegasus? The chance to make exponentially more money over the coming years with their horse.

This day is the lottery for rich people. And people just with money to enjoy a big event.

On any other day of the racing year, Gulfstream has free admission. On Saturday, admission started at

$60 to walk in the park. Somewhere after rapper Snoop Dogg money-gunning dollar bills of his likeness into Saturday’s crowd and telling riders in the paddock to get up on their horses, there was some sport to Saturday. A race was run in the rain. The toughest horse won. The trainer teared up. “I don’t have the words,” McCarthy said.

Words aren’t necessary. Dollars are. That’s what the event that might show the future for horse racing. It’s not about following the horses as much as following the dollars. And the dollars won every race again Saturday.

Dave Hyde