Appropriately, N.T.R.A. Commissioner Tim Smith has jumped into the Breeders' Cup Ultra Pick Six mess with full force and promised that his office will do everything in its power to make sure that wagering security procedures are airtight and that anyone making a bet in the future need not worry they'll fall victim to a scam. Officials of several major racetracks have done the same, saying they'll get to the bottom of the problems and fix them. There have been meetings, committees have been formed and audit firms are going to be brought in.

That's all well and fine, but someone in power should also head to the nearest racetrack, OTB or simulcast location and talk to the people in the trenches who are out there betting every day. They're the ones whose opinions matter most and they are the ones who must be convinced that the game is completely on the level. This is what they will tell you: Forget the Pick Six mess, it's the odds fluctuations after a race has begun that really tees them off. They don't understand it, they don't like it and they want it to stop.

Ever since simulcasting became the dominant form of wagering in this country, the odds at the time the horses leave the gate and the odds at the time the race is declared official can vary, sometimes dramatically. A horse can break from the gate at 5-1, hit the eighth-pole at 7-2 and then pay $8.20 when it's all said and done. And it seems to happen a disproportionate amount of times with horses who are in front or battling for the lead and are more likely to win than ones stuck in the back of the pack.

Is something funny going on and is someone or somebody betting after the races have begun? Let's hope not, but that's not the point. Whether anything untoward is happening or not, you can't blame people for being suspicious. It's a case of perception being reality.

"There's no question someone is betting after the bell goes off," said Monmouth Park regular Mike Garafine. "It doesn't happen so much at the bigger tracks, but I see it happen all the time at places like Philly Park and Laurel. I don't know if it's someone using a computer or what. I understand that some money comes in late, but why is it that the odds always seem to drop on a horse who gets out front?"

"I'm sure they've been betting after the races have started and have been doing it for years," said another Monmouth patron, Bruce Fischbein. "Why is it always a horse contending for the lead or on the lead that gets bet down? They can do amazing things with computers these days."

Garafine and Fischbein are not your broken down horseplayers who think every race is fixed, every jockey is a thieving bum and the deck will forever be stacked against people like themselves. Rather, they are two of New Jersey's most respected horseplayers, the type who are smart, know the game inside and are out there most every day trying to knock out a few winners. If they think someone is past posting or betting after the races have begun (they do) and if there are tens of thousands of others out there who think like them (there are), then racing had better take this matter very seriously.

The explanation from the industry is that the late odds changes are an unfortunate part of life in the simulcasting era. Because so much money is coming in from so many different places, much of it at the last second, it takes a while to gather and compute the information. When the horses break from the gate, there are still tens of thousands of simulcast dollars filtering in from around the country that haven't yet been calculated.

The good news is that this is a problem that is easily fixable.All the tracks and tote operators and OTB's have do is to put a delay in place between the time the betting windows close and the race begins. The race cannot start until every dollar that has been bet has been accounted for and the absolute drop-dead final odds are in. It may take 90 seconds, two minutes, but it will be worth the wait.

The industry has been reluctant to do it because no one wants to shut out bettors. Obviously, the first few days would be chaotic and there will be some players who don't get their bets in in time, meaning handle will have been lost. But people will quickly adjust. Once everyone knows that they have to get their bets in on time and there will be a delay between the time the windows close and the race is run, the problems will have ended. That will mean more happy customers and fewer cynical customers. In the post Pick Six scandal-era, that's all that really matters.