Gulfstream: How to bet the $3,244 Super High 5 carryover

A relatively quiet Sunday of post-Kentucky Derby racing includes a $3,244 Super High 5 carryover at Gulfstream Park.

It won’t pay as much as the Kentucky Derby Super High 5, which returned a whopping $316,920. But the non-jackpot carryover adds value to a wager that doesn’t appear especially hard to hit on paper.

The prize pool is available to chase in Race 9, a maiden special weight for fillies and mares racing one mile on turf. With eight horses in the entries, there are only 6,720 possible Super High 5 outcomes to analyze, and we can slice that number down to 840 by keying morning line favorite #4 Eastern Empress (2-1) on top.

A British-bred four-year-old daughter of Dubawi, Eastern Empress spent her first five starts competing abroad without much success. But four of her starts came racing 1 1/4 miles or farther, and she improved a lot when cutting back to 1 1/16 miles for her U.S. debut in a maiden special weight at Tampa Bay Downs last month.

Making her first start off a five-month layoff—and her first start for high-percentage trainer Christophe Clement—Eastern Empress settled a few lengths off the pace before surging to a 3 1/2-length lead passing the eighth pole. She looked home-free until deep closing 7-10 favorite Maman Joon rallied from out of the clouds to win by 1 1/2 lengths.

Still, Eastern Empress ran well in defeat, pulling 4 1/2 lengths clear of the third-place finisher. She earned a 77 Brisnet Speed rating that is only two points lower than the par winning number for Sunday’s conditions at Gulfstream, so if Eastern Empress improves at all in her second stateside start (which is possible if she times her rally better), she can deliver victory as the 2-1 morning line favorite.

Who else should we include? #5 Enduring (6-1) has cracked the top five in both of her starts against maiden special weight competition on turf, and the beautifully bred filly may do so again on Sunday. #3 Street View (5-2) has every chance too, after finishing second and fourth in her last two starts at this class level over the Gulfstream lawn. And we can’t dismiss #1 Sleepwalker (6-1), who ran well in her grass debut at Gulfstream just over five weeks ago, finishing third in a $50,000 maiden optional claimer.

Here’s how we’ll bet the Super High 5:

• $1 Super High 5: 4 with 1,3,5 with 1,3,5 with 1,3,5 with 2,6,7,8 ($24)
• $1 Super High 5: 4 with 1,3,5 with 1,3,5 with 2,6,8 with 1,3,5 ($18)
• $1 Super High 5: 4 with 1,3,5 with 2,6,8 with 1,3,5 with 1,3,5 ($18)
  Total: $60

Good luck!