Carryover adds allure

ARCADIA, Calif. - The main race on Wednesday's program at Santa Anita is the $75,000 Paseana Handicap for fillies and mares, but many bettors will be focusing on a pick six carryover of $156,552.

The pick six covers the third through eighth races, and includes the Paseana Handicap, which will be run over 1 1/16 miles and drew seven entrants.

The pick six includes five races on dirt - three sprints and two routes - and one race on turf, a route.

None of the pick six races has a full field. One race has six entrants, two have seven, and there are fields of eight, 10, and 11.

The pick six does not include the second race, an optional claimer on turf led by Castle Gandolfo, who finished 12th in the 2002 Kentucky Derby. He is being prepped for the $400,000 Strub Stakes on Feb. 1.

The Paseana Handicap may only be a midweek stakes, but it has added importance as a prep to the $200,000 Santa Maria Handicap on Feb. 16 and $300,000 Santa Margarita Invitational Handicap on March 9. With Horse of the Year candidate Azeri not expected to compete at the meeting pending a sale in March, those races are more wide open this year than last year.

At least, that is the point of view of trainer Ron McAnally, who starts Printemps in the Paseana. Printemps would be well suited for those major races with a victory or a strong performance on Wednesday.

There are no world-beaters in the Paseana. Only Angel Gift has won a stakes in the last year, having won the Golden Poppy Handicap at Bay Meadows in late October. She returned to finish second in the Bayakoa Handicap at Hollywood Park on Dec. 15.

Printemps is winless in her last seven starts, dating back to the Hawthorne Handicap at Hollywood Park in May 2001. Last fall, the 6-year-old Printemps finished third behind Take Charge Lady and You in the Spinster Stakes at Keeneland Oct. 6 and was a well-beaten fourth in the Falls City Handicap at Churchill Downs on Nov. 28.

In the Spinster, Printemps was last early. In the Falls City Handicap, she was closer to the pace, tactics that McAnally did not want to see.

"She was too close, and she didn't finish," McAnally said. "She needs a pace in front of her."

Aside from Angel Gift, Printemps must beat Rhiana, who won an optional claimer over a mile Dec. 31, and Se Me Acabo, who was stakes-placed twice last summer at Del Mar.

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