Fair Grounds: Analyzing the $10,042 Pick 6 carryover

The Pick 6 carryover at Fair Grounds continues to grow. After going unsolved on each of the last four racing days, the ever-elusive $1 wager has accumulated a $10,042 carryover for Sunday’s card.

The sequence gets underway in Race 3 (post time 2:45 p.m. ET), and it looks competitive on paper. Before scratches, the six races contain 68 horses (averaging about 11.3 per race) and 1,960,200 possible outcomes. But a couple of relatively straightforward races to start the Pick 6 should help us assemble tickets on reasonable budgets.

Take Race 3, a $35,000 allowance optional claimer for Louisiana-bred fillies and mares sprinting about 5 1/2 furlongs on turf. Morning line favorite #8 Basalt Street (5-2) has spent much of her career competing on dirt and synthetic, but she hasn’t missed the exacta in three turf starts and should handle the Fair Grounds lawn just fine. Her latest three runs have come against Louisiana-bred stakes competition on dirt, including a gate-to-wire victory in the Rosewater S. at Delta Downs, so Basalt Street enters Sunday’s contest in strong form and looms as a logical win threat.

The only other runner we’ll use is #2 Charlie T (7-2), who has won three of her last four starts, including the Louisiana Bred Premier Matron S. at Delta Downs last time out. With an 11-5-3-1 lifetime tally on turf, she boasts considerably more grass experience than Basalt Street and has every chance to vie for top honors.

Race 4 ought to produce a logical outcome as well. It’s a $15,000 maiden claimer for three-year-olds sprinting six furlongs on dirt, which should play to the strengths of #8 Midnight Avenger (3-1). He faltered in a $50,000 maiden optional claimer racing one mile and 70 yards at Fair Grounds last month, finishing sixth. But in his debut two starts back, Midnight Avenger rallied to finish fourth in a fast six-furlong Fair Grounds maiden special weight won by Doncho, who returned to win impressively a six-furlong $100,000 allowance optional claimer.

Cutting back to six furlongs and dropping into a $15,000 maiden claimer should make Midnight Avenger tough to beat while adding blinkers for trainer Joe Sharp, who wins at a 21% rate with horses going from a sprint to a route and back to a sprint. #3 Big Fig (7-2) is the other logical win threat while dropping in class out of three maiden special weights, but while he’s worth including as backup, we prefer the chances of Midnight Avenger.

Good luck!