Exacta Bet of the Day for Saturday, June 22, 2019, at Canterbury Park

The Saturday, June 22, 2019, race card at Canterbury Park is one of the best days of the meet, complete with five stakes races worth a combined $500,000. The stakes action gets started in Race 4 with the running of the $50,000 Hoist Her Flag Stakes for fillies and mares, three-years-old and up, going six furlongs. This race offers an excellent opportunity to hit an exacta and help you build bankroll for the remaining four stakes races on the 11-race card. The Hoist Her Flag features a nine-horse field led by a beatable-looking favorite. Knock off the chalk, and you could catch a big number in the exactas in Race 4. EXACTA PICKS ARI GIA (#2) (4-1) comes into this spot in career-best form off of three straight local victories, including a win two back in the $50,000 Lady Slipper Stakes for state-bred runners. Her excellent year could continue to roll along in this winnable spot, based on her five wins in her last six races, including five-for-five with jockey Francisco Arrieta aboard. The mare handles any track condition, and has the speed to lead and never look back but is versatile enough to not need the lead in order to win. PUNTSVILLE (#5) (5-1) is the two-time defending champion of this race, but may not even be the favorite. The seven-year-old is making just her second start of 2019 and needed the last race, which came off a six-month layoff at Prairie Meadows in the Prairie Rose Stakes. She needs to turn the tables on Lake Ponchatrain, who beat her at Prairie Meadows, but will benefit from that return prep race in this spot and now gets back to perhaps her favorite track in a race she has owned since 2017. LAKE PONCHATRAIN (#6) (5-2) owns two straight wins and three wins in the four starts so far in 2019 including a win over Puntsville and No Mercy Percy last out in the Prairie Rose Stakes. Her BRIS Speed figures stack up nicely against these, but perhaps her biggest edge in this race could be her pace advantage as a stalker/closer in a race that appears to have plenty of speed entered to help set up her late run. HOTSHOT ANNA (#8) (7-2) is apparently a synthetic track monster who crushed three straight fields last year when last seen in back-to-back stakes wins at Arlington and Presque Isle Downs, including two graded scores. The likely favorite here based on the Chicago Handicap (G3) and Presque Isle Downs Masters (G2) victories, but those were on synthetic tracks, not dirt, and she has not been seen in the nine months since the Grade 2 win at Presque Isle. In her favor, Hotshot Anna is capable of BRIS Speed figures far superior to these, and she appears versatile enough to handle any and all surfaces, including turf and also dirt. She won, and was stakes-placed, at Canterbury last year on the main track, but perhaps her vulnerability in this spot is the fact that she’s entering off the long layoff and without a prep race. Several of the nine entrants in the Hoist Her Flag Stakes could be considered contenders, at least for the exactas, but you should be able to lock up the horses with the best and most legitimate chances to win by using the four horses listed above in the exactas. A four-horse box should lock this up, and if you are fortunate enough to beat the favorite or have the favorite run out of the exacta, you should be sitting on a good ticket. EXACTA WAGER $2 Exacta Box: 2, 5, 6, 8 = $24 PHOTO: Ari Gia wins the Lady Slipper Stakes at Canterbury Park under jockey Francisco Arrieta on May 18, 2019 (c) Coady Photography/Canterbury Park