Double Triple

For the 15th consecutive day, the Double Triple at Pimlico Race Course went unsolved yesterday, moving the carry-over pool to $268,372.10 for tomorrow's races.The Double Triple challenges bettors to select the first three horses in the third and fifth races. After the third race yesterday, 319 tickets had correctly picked the first-half horses, but no one selected the 10-9-2 winning combination in the fifth race.The record carry-over pool at Pimlico was set April 4, when the payoff reached $414,243.

Some say no trouble ever happens along the quiet northern border of the Evergreen Lawn neighborhood in West Baltimore. Other residents say the most they've seen are teenagers fighting. But on Tuesday night, residents in the 2500 block of West Lafayette Ave. awoke to police tape and flashing lights after a home invasion left two sons dead and their mother injured. "Never seen anything like this in my life," said Deborah Brown, 55, who lives across the street. "Never had any problems.

LAUREL -- Four new Maryland Racing Commission rules involving the bettor went into effect yesterday, including one that concerns the carry-over of the Double Triple pool on the final day of a meeting.That rule eliminates a special distribution of the pool money in the exotic wager, which requires a patron to pick the first three finishers in both the third and fifth races on any day's program. Instead, the pool money will be carried over to the beginning of the next meeting at either Laurel or Pimlico race courses.

Allison Barnabe is soooooo tired of people asking her what it's like to be a triplet. It's just like being any other kid, she says. Fortunately for her, some of the attention has been diffused lately, now that she and her sisters, Nicole and Corinne, attend school with another set of triplets: Kyle, Dylan and Bryan Ruygrok. The six youngsters, all 12 years old, are seventh-graders at Ellicott Mills Middle School. Last year, said Principal Michael Goins, a third set of triplets, two girls and a boy, also attended the Ellicott City school.

An unidentified racing fan held the only winning ticket in the Double Triple yesterday and received a Laurel Race Course-record payoff of $375,350.40. It was the second-highest windfall ever paid in Maryland, topped only by the $414,243 in the Double Triple at Pimlico Race Course last April 4. The Double Triple was previously hit March 3 and had gone unsolved for 13 racing days. After the third race, where the 3-2-1 combination paid $278.40, there were 323 live tickets.

LAUREL -- Andrew Beyer, who writes racing and gambling columns for The Washington Post, invested $1,300 at Laurel Race Course yesterday and collected a Double Triple payoff that was listed at $195,070.His selection of the 6-9-10 combination represented the only winning Double Triple ticket. By the time the track had deducted 20 percent for taxes and he had paid off 1 percent to friends who bought in with a $13 investment, Beyer had about $156,000 profit.It was the largest payoff for Beyer in the several times he has won the Double Triple.

A major switch in the Double Triple wager will be in effect at Laurel Race Course next Saturday. The track will begin offering a $100,000 minimum jackpot that day, and the minimum wager will be raised from $3 to $5.Management had been pondering such a change for several months. Officials are hoping the $100,000 minimum will spur betting in the gimmick, which has traditionally taken weeks to "snowball" into sizable numbers."I hope it will do that, but I don't necessarily think it will [encourage betting]

LAUREL -- Two retired brothers took the Double Triple pool of $232,238.10, involving the third and fifth races at Laurel Race Course yesterday.Stew Stinchcomb, 57, of Randallstown, and his brother, Roger, 63, of Owings Mills, selected the numbers by unexplained inspiration, and the payoffs came because they got lucky in both races.The brothers invested $24 at the Pimlico Race Course intertrack facility while the horses were running here. The betting pools at the two tracks are combined for payoff purposes.

LAUREL -- Laurel Race Course president Joe De Francis yesterday reiterated his position on the new aspects of the track's Double Triple wager, saying the $5 minimum was "designed for a specific segment" of the track's clientele.Fans have been indifferent to the "new" Double Triple, instituted 10 racing days ago with a $100,000 guarantee. Yesterday, the carry-over passed into six figures ($100,344.40) for the first time since the revision, a slow climb similar to those during the previous five years, when the bet required a $3 minimum.

Five Baltimore co-workers used a little skill and a lot of luck to collect a Maryland-record payoff of $414,243.90 at Pimlico Race Course yesterday.The group swept the Double Triple pool, which had carried over through the first 16 days of the meeting. Members of the group, who work at an auto-body shop, wished to remain anonymous.Each winning member chipped in $100, with four of them making thelunch-break trip to Pimlico. A group spokesman said they had one of 68 winning third-race combinations, then settled on the lone successful fifth-race exchange after picking a piece of paper out of a hat."

Starting today, the Mexican government is imposing a surcharge of at least 14 cents a minute to complete international calls to cell phones, doubling or tripling rates callers pay. "It's going to hurt the average consumer significantly," said Jeff Compton, an executive at Telscape Communications Inc., a Monrovia, Calif., phone company catering to Hispanics. Gabriel Lasco, 27, a waiter at Maria's Pescado Frito at the Grand Central Market in Los Angeles, knows how to get around the surcharges to call his father in Mexico City.

On Mother's Days past, our son (assisted by his dad) liked to make breakfast for me. Following much clanging of pots and pans, I would be greeted by a smiling junior chef, proudly holding a tray loaded with breakfast. In those days, our child rarely ventured into the kitchen to cook. Mother's Day was the single exception. But now, a few decades later, he's a parent himself, and more than a little talented when it comes to cooking. In fact, he does most of the meal preparation for his young family, and loves celebrating special occasions with good food.

DEERFIELD, Ill. - Walgreen Co., the largest U.S. drugstore chain, said yesterday that it accidentally overcharged as many as 4 million customers buying gifts and decorations the two days before Christmas because its payment-processing system malfunctioned from overuse. Walgreen discovered the error on Christmas Day and electronically reimbursed customers whose credit or debit cards had been incorrectly double- and triple-charged, company spokesman Michael Polzin said. Some credits may not post on customers' accounts until early next week, he said.

Two years after being taken over by the state for their abysmally low test scores, three Baltimore schools have begun to show significant improvement under the management of a for-profit company. Furman L. Templeton, Gilmor and Montebello elementary/junior academies showed substantial progress under Edison Schools Inc. on the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills, a national standardized test given annually to city children in grades one through eight. Performance in math was especially strong at all three schools on the tests given last month, with some grades more than tripling their scores.

Most real estate agents would agree that Canton is a "hot" area in which to buy a home. Prices for small, modest homes that a few years ago may have sold for as little as $30,000 or $40,000 have been selling for two and three times that amount as young professionals are eager to move to the hip waterfront neighborhood. Connie Breeden, a personal chef with her own business - Just a Matter of Thyme - knew Canton was the place to live three years ago when she decided to move from her home near Patterson Park.

Downtown Howard Street is slated for an overhaul in coming years that proponents say will infuse the west side with millions in public and private dollars and return residents and merchants to the city's former premier shopping area. But as far as the state is concerned, things are already looking up on Baltimore's west side, where some of the largest increases in property values were recorded in the latest round of reassess- ments downtown. Although that area represents just a fraction of the $1.8 billion in taxable property downtown, where values increased 20 percent overall, the west side had the largest cluster of assessments that doubled and tripled.

LAUREL -- The Double Triple carry-over at Laurel Race Course has grown to $214,599.40 heading into today's races.There were 33 live tickets yesterday after the first half, the third race. But no bettors selected the second half combination of 3-5-1 in the fifth race.The Double Triple has gone unsolved for 21 consecutive racing days. The wager, with a new $5 minimum, was introduced at Laurel and the Pimlico Race Course inter-track facility Oct. 12.( Post time today is noon.

LAUREL -- Alice Thomas of Baltimore had the only winning ticket and collected Laurel's $158,247.90 Double Triple yesterday.Thomas, 53, a horse player for 30 years, said she wasn't sure what she would do with her winnings."

Wherever he plays, no matter how many points he scores, Mount Hebron's Eric Toback leaves a lasting impression. He's the Vikings player that opposing coaches double-team routinely and triple-team when they can. The 6-foot-6, 210-pound junior center's 29-point, eight-rebound effort Dec. 15 in the Vikings league-opening 69-64 victory over Long Reach e-mailed his capabilities far and wide. He sank four of five three-pointers and 11 of 12 free throws in that game, and displayed great hands and a deft shooting touch that led Lightning coach Al Moraz to call him `phenomenal.

The two Maryland-trained entries in the Kentucky Derby are both solid racehorses with respectable pedigrees that could command top dollar in an auction.But if either Concerto or Captain Bodgit wins tomorrow's classic, their value would easily double or triple, to several million dollars.Even in the high-stakes world of thoroughbreds, where millions of dollars are paid for horses who can generate returns either on the track or in the breeding barn, a Kentucky Derby win is like nothing else.