Churchill Downs Single 6 Jackpot: A horse to leverage Thursday

Be honest. Doesn’t the possibility of winning ~$300,000 on a 20-cent wager sound appealing?

The spring meet at Churchill Downs winds down this week with days of racing on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. As it stands,the carryover pool for the Single 6 jackpot wager is $294,725, with a mandatory payout scheduled for Saturday.

The Single 6 is similar to a traditional Pick 6, but on days when multiple winning tickets are sold, a portion of the pool—the “jackpot”—carries over to the next racing day. This allows the jackpot pool to accumulate over time, and with the total now approaching $300,000, the opportunity exists to make a huge score if you can piece together the one and only winning ticket.

The key here isn’t to find a short-priced single to keep your ticket costs down—the 20-cent base bet already does a good job keeping expenses reasonable. Instead the best strategy is to find winning longshots that other players will have excluded from their tickets.

In the fourth race Thursday (a six-furlong, $40,000 maiden claiming race), I believe #8 Lea Ridge might be such a horse. A well-bred son of Congrats out of a Forestry mare, Lea Ridge appears overmatched on paper, as the 3-year-old gelding is facing older horses and has never finished better than sixth in three starts.

But dig a little deeper, and Lea Ridge’s positive attributes become more apparent. He’s getting a weight break from his older rivals (118 pounds instead of 124), and he’ll be racing with Lasix for the first time after he faded to finish last in his most recent start. Even better, he’ll be cutting back sharply in distance from 1 1/16 miles to six furlongs, which gives him a better chance to carry his speed to the winner’s circle. Two of Lea Ridge’s defeats came over sloppy, sealed tracks, and his best effort came over a dry track, which he should find at Churchill on Thursday.

But the biggest reason to respect Lea Ridge is the drop in class he’s taking. After competing against older rivals in three straight maiden special weights, Lea Ridge is dropping in for a claiming tag, and trainer William Van Meter strikes at a 21-percent rate (more than double his overall 10% rate) with this move.

I’m not sure I’d recommend singling Lea Ridge in this competitive race—with 12 entrants plus four also-eligibles, a full field is virtually assured—but he’s 8-1 on the morning line and might drift even higher by post time, which makes him an appealing horse to leverage in the Single 6.

Good luck with your tickets!