By Jim Freer
The Gulfstream Park West meet will have nine stakes races on Saturday, along with a carryover of $642,402 on the Rainbow 6.
First post will be 12:00 p.m. for an 11-race card, at Calder in Miami Gardens.
The stakes will be race numbers one through four and then six through ten. All are restricted to Florida breds and have $75,000 purses.
The Weather Channel forecast is for a 30 percent chance of rain during racing hours.
We will have previews and other coverage starting late this morning on our blog, which can be accessed on the menu bar at the top of the home page of this Web site.
This link http://www.equibase.com/static/entry/RaceCardIndexGPW110919USA-EQB.html to the Equibase Web site has the GP West entries for this Saturday. It provides access to past performances and other handicapping products.
Meet sponsor Gulfstream Park is calling the card the Millions Preview. Four of the races have distances and conditions that are similar to stakes races with larger purses that will be run on the Sunshine Millions program at Gulfstream on Jan. 18.
The first race has a carryover of $2,417 in the Super Hi-5.
It is the Millions Turf Preview, at 1 1/16 miles for 3-year-olds and up.
The likely favorite is Galleon Mast, who won this race last year. Paco Lopez will ride for trainer David Fawkes.
The Rainbow 6 will be on races six to eleven, with the sequence scheduled to start at 2:26 p.m.
The carryover is now 28 days old–following Friday that was still another day without the jackpot takedown requirement of just one ticket with all six winning horses.
On Friday there were three tickets with all six winners.. Each paid $30,082 on the 20-cent per combination only bet.
Program numbers of the winning horses were 3-4-1-5-1-12.
The small number of winning tickets is attributable largely to victories by Bunyan’s Axe, at 12-1. in the fifth race and Alafia, at 19-1, in the eighth race.
Bettors put $161,182 into the Rainbow 6. Following the 20 percent takeout, Gulfstream distributed 56 percent of the day’s bet among the three winning tickets and added 24 percent to the carryover.
Friday’s Rainbow 6 betting was the second highest in the 28-day old GP West meet.
With the attraction of stakes races, we expect that Rainbow 6 betting will be between $250,000 and $300,000 on Saturday.
— Photo on home page by Barry Unterbrink