I get the arguments for having the pk5 early in the day, but I am not sure it is so cut and dry as that. BT makes some excellent points. If you are like me, someone who works five days a week and rarely gets to handicap much of the card before the races start, it will be a challenge for me to have the first five races handicapped to be in position to make the wager. Most days I am in a better position to play multi's on the later races because I have been able to handicap the rest of the card between the early races.
I have a hard time believing it will canibalize the pk6 pool in particular. To me the pk6 player is a completely different animal than the pk5 or pk4 player and I find it hard to believe that putting a pk5 in a race after the pk6 would put much of a dent in the pk6 pool. Sure, the pk4 pool will take somewhat of a hit, but many people will play both pools, especially if you are knocked out in the first leg or if you are going narrower in the pk5 and want to have more coverage with more spread in the pk4.
Then there is the issue of Aqueduct in the winter and sometimes at Belmont where you have small fields in the early races or fields with first time starters or the races they don't want in the pk6 which will get stuck in the pk5 making the bet less attractive.
I think there is higher handle in the later races in NY for two reasons, first you have more people who ignore the earlier races and get involved in the later races because they are typically better betting races and higer quality fields, as JMS says, more stakes races, i.e. quality fields, which attract higher pools. Second, they are getting a lot more money from the West Coast.
IMO the bet should be where the best action on it will be, in the later races.
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