Gulfstream Park: How to bet the $2,925 Super High 5 carryover

Do you think you can solve Sunday’s first race at Gulfstream Park? If you can select the top five finishers in the correct order, you’ll win a share of the $2,925 carryover in the $1 Super High 5.

As far as Super High 5 carryovers go, Gulfstream’s offering looks moderately difficult to hit. Race 1 is a $40,000 maiden optional claimer taking place over one mile and 70 yards on Tapeta, and the eligibility conditions are complicated. It’s open to three-year-olds and older horses, but horses bred in Florida are ineligible to be claimed, whereas horses bred in other states must compete for the $40,000 claiming tag.

That sounds like a tricky race to decipher, and with nine horses in the entries, there are 15,120 possible Super High 5 outcomes. That’s a lot of combinations to sort through.

We’ll start by acknowledging #4 Racket (3-1) as a logical, but not unbeatable favorite. The four-year-old gelding has hit the board in eight of his last 11 starts, not to mention seven of his last eight tries on Tapeta. But Racket has lost several times over this class level, and his 14-0-3-3 lifetime record indicates this speedy pacesetter is often content to settle for a minor award.

Let’s try to beat Racket with #1 Dollar Bill (8-1). He’s three years old and has only run once, finishing sixth in a maiden special weight for Florida-breds sprinting six furlongs over the Gulfstream Park main track. The winner, Naruto, came right back to win an allowance at Gulfstream.

Dollar Bill has been freshened and gelded since his November debut, so he has lots of upside for improvement. Adding Lasix is another positive angle, as is the fact Dollar Bill breezed a bullet five furlongs from the Gulfstream Park starting gate on March 29. Throw in the fact his half-brother Handy Dandy won the Let It Ride S. on turf at Del Mar, and Dollar Bill is eligible to improve while switching to Tapeta for his second start.

If we key Dollar Bill on top in the Super High 5 and emphasize Racket and #7 Kinison (7-2) underneath, we should have a reasonably good chance to take down a nice-paying Super High 5. We’ll also place a win bet on Dollar Bill, just in case he takes home top honors at a nice price, but we miss out on the Super High 5. If you opt-in to the 25% Sunday Special Win Bonus promotion from TwinSpires, you’ll receive a 25% bonus (up to $50) on the win payoff. Nice!

• $1 Super High 5: 1 with 4,7 with 4,7 with 2,6,9 with 2,5,6,9 ($18)
• $1 Super High 5: 1 with 4,7 with 2,6,9 with 4,7 with 2,5,6,9 ($18)
• $1 Super High 5: 1 with 4,7 with 2,6,9 with 2,5,6,9 with 4,7 ($18)
• $16 to win on #1 Dollar Bill
  Total: $70

Good luck!