Seven Men on Four Horses

Whether he does it at Monte Carlo's casino or a bookie's back room, the little guy who beats the big system is an odds-on favorite to become a national hero. And so, when an aptly titled long shot named Historic Value won the ninth harness race one night last week at New York's Roosevelt Raceway, the holder of the winning $132,232.80 ticket was hailed by every $2 bettor as the man of the hour.

But where was the man? The world's most valuable twin-double ticket was finally claimed, not on the hour but nearly two days later, and not by the perennial underdog but by a platoon of upper-income New Jersey businessmen who arrived at the track in a long green Cadillac and left behind them the dis tinct impression of a gamble involving neither luck nor love of the game but of a cold-eyed investment by men who know their way around.

Backwheeling & Alive. According to the group's official spokesman, Joseph J. Saker, 35, six out of the seven partners were at the track that night to watch a horse belonging to three of them, which was running in an earlier race. Once there, they decided to hang around for the twin-double (a package deal that covers four races--the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth). The group liked No. 5 in the seventh race, "back-wheeled" by coupling it with each of the eight horses running in the sixth race. They bought two $10 tickets on each combination for a total investment of $160. They could not lose the sixth, since every horse was covered. And when No. 5 took the seventh, the group perked up.

Two of their $10 tickets were still "alive." They exchanged them for ten $2 tickets, and spraddled their money across the next two races. They bet No. 1 and No. 4 in the eighth race, coupled each with five out of the eight horses running in the ninth. When No. 1 took the eighth, they stood a better than even chance on the ninth, but as it turned out, their victory was only accidental: the favorite tripped, causing a four-horse pile-up that left the way clear for Historic Value to jog unchallenged to the finish line.

Party of the Second Part. A yokel would have raced to collect on the spot. But every track buff in the world knows enough about taxes to realize that such a windfall may dwindle before his very eyes. The Government form he is obliged to put his name to is in duplicate, and the party of the second part is the Internal Revenue Service.

The winners were no yokels. When they appeared, finally, they were flanked by both a lawyer and an accountant. By their own admission, they were men "of substantial means" who did not "especially need the money"; among them, they had upwards of 28 dependents. Michael D. Sherman, 51, is a successful suburban real-estate dealer. William L. Bresnahan Jr., 31, is a dairy distributor, a partner with Joe Saker and his brother John E. Saker Jr., 30, in a 14-horse stable. Fair Acres Farm in Freehold, N.J. The Saker brothers also own a franchise in a supermarket chain. Their father, described as too ill and elderly to make the trip, owns the fifth share in the winning ticket. The sixth partner? Bresnahan's father, also too ill and elderly to make the trip. The seventh? His name was not immediately disclosed.

But then there were lots of unanswered questions. And no one was more interested in the answers than the Internal Revenue Service, which stood to lose some $44,000 of the winner's loot. For where a single ticket holder (estimated on a fairly shortsighted basis to have a wife, two children and no outside income) would take no more than the standard 10% deduction and pay a whopping $67,000 tax, a seven-way split figured on the same basis would net each partner $18,890 and leave the Government a measly $23,000 total. Said the Revenooers last week: "We will take a pretty close look at all of this." In other words, they wanted to be sure the cartel came before the horse.

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