Handle down for Pegasus World Cup card

Total handle on the 13-race card at Gulfstream Saturday, which featured the Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup Invitational Stakes and seven other stakes races, was down 11.4 percent compared to betting on the same card last year, according to charts of the races.

Total handle was $41,705,466, more than a $5 million drop from the handle figure of $47,076,610 last year. This year’s 13-race card had 136 runners, compared to 142 runners in 13 races last year.

Last year’s full-card handle was up 7.2 percent over the betting for the 2023 World Cup card, which had 134 total runners.

For the World Cup itself, total handle on the race was $12,175,818, including multi-leg bets. That was down 3.8 percent from last year’s total for the race. Last year’s race had 12 runners, while this year’s edition had 11 runners.

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The Pegasus World Cup card is Gulfstream’s highest-handling race day, and it ranks within the top 10 race dates in the U.S. by money bet. The program was inaugurated in 2017, when the World Cup had a $12 million purse, funded entirely by entry fees.

Total purse distribution for World Cup day this year was $5.91 million, compared to $5.76 million last year.

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