2:31 pm: Eight minutes to post for race four, first leg of the pick-six with a $1,186,625 carryover from Belmont Stakes Day courtesy of Da' Tara.
My tickets are in, a little under $2k worth, on what I found to be a skullbuster of a card, one better suited to some $1 pick-3 and pick-4 plays trying to catch bombs in one tough race after another than to nailing six in a row. The sheer size of the pool compels me to play anyway and take my best shot, just in case it's easier than it looks. A caveman ticket using all my A's B's and C's would have run a little more than $46k, so I mixed and matched on seven tickets -- an $1152 main and six smaller single-backup tickets.
Ninety percent of my play involves one of the two favorites winning the first leg. Here's hoping, and good luck to all.
2:50 pm: Second choice My Dinah($6.90) kept the whole world alive for at least one leg, running down 7-5 Love Co in upper stretch and drawing away from 33-1 Aly's Colors. Love Co blazed the first quarter in a crazy 22.52 under Prado, opening a six-length lead that dissipated quickly around the turn, and the final quarter of the race was run in 29.09 (that's not a typo) for a mile in 1:41.57. My Dinah, a half-sister to turf stakes-winner Them There Eyes, is now 3-for-4 on dirt, 0-for-3 on grass.
NYRA's announcing a gross pool of $4.4 million, meaning we all put in about $3.2 million today. Guess the Belmont didn't sour everyone on the game.
3:30 pm: Youbethecan ($21.00), trained by some guy named Rick Dutrow, blew past the field through the stretch to win Leg 2 as the 5th choice in a field of 12. Good news: I used him. Bad news: Only as a "C," so I'm down to one live ticket that singles favorite Dancing Tin Man in the next leg: 8/4,5,9/5,7,8,9/7,8.
Youbethecan ran a dull 5th as the 2-1 favorite in the April 23 version of this $35k N2L grass claimer, then was freshened up by Dutrow during the three editions of the race during May that produced most of the rest of this field. I know the horse's name is pronounced "You Bet He Can" but for some reason I always read it as "You Be The Can."
Let's go Dancing Tin Man.
3:59 pm: Can you say Three Million Dollar Carryover? We could all be saying that in about an hour and a half, after Willsboro Point won Leg 3 at $47.80 , completing a $1937 pick-3 for the first half of the pick-six.
Willsboro Point was hard to like unless you favor pedigree over past performance. He might have been the best-bred colt in the field, out of the multiple turf stakes-winner Petrouchka, but he was coming out of a very slow and slow-paced front-running victory against weaker, where he was claimed by Scott Schwartz from Roy Lerman. That was the race much of the field in the 5th race was coming out of, and all of them ran poorly.
I have no idea why Dancing Tin Man was dead last and in a race of his own far behind all nine of his opponents. Belatedly cut loose, he was running over horses but managed only to get fourth. Oh well.
4:30 pm: Myakka dimmed hopes for a Gargantuan double-carryover py proving best as the 8-5 favorite in Leg 4, surviving an early mild (45.12) duel with Classic Love before pulling away to win this statebred turf sprint in 1:08.86. Second to Lost Without You in her turf debut in the May 26 version of this race, Myakka looked best on paper but I couldn't emphasize her more strongly because it looked like there were six one-way speeds in the race and thus a potential meltdown.
I know the parlay's under $5k through four legs but Willsboro Point was so tough that I still think we could have a carry if anything goofy happens in the last two legs.
Let's go goofy!
5:02 pm: Pennington was insufficiently goofy at $9.20, so eight of the nine horses are covered in the finale. Unless you're alive for something you're probably rooting for #4, Say Karakorm Sandy, the only one who can deliver a $3 million carry. The will-pays, posted above, range from 29 live tickets to favored Ten Forty to just two at $1.49 million to Mackinaw. I guess I'm rooting for either a carryover with SKS or one stinking conso with either Newmont or Estimator, which might get me my money back if they pay around half a percent of the $499.405 or $334,050 top prizes.
5:28 pm: Ten Forty, whose charms I clearly did not appreciate since he was only a "B" in my book, galloped at 4-5 in the finale to enrich 29 sages to the tune of $103,754 apiece. No conso, no carryover, but just wait until next time.
