Keeneland: Pick five carryover of $73,023 for Wednesday; full fields make task difficult

LEXINGTON, Ky. – There will be no rest for the bleary-eyed horseplayers who have been taking their hacks at the Rainbow 6 jackpot at Gulfstream Park or any of the recent pick six carryovers at Aqueduct or Santa Anita.

Bettors with multirace tendencies will be taking a long look at the 50-cent pick five at Keeneland, where a 25-1 shot named My Afleet was the first winner Sunday and helped leave a jackpot of $73,023 for the final five-race sequence of an eight-race Wednesday card.

The enticing element to carryovers, of course, is that the “dead money” helps negate or partly offset the fixed takeout, thereby shifting the true odds in favor of gamblers.

Still, as with those other tracks, this one at Keeneland won’t be easy. Full fields of 12 are entered in all but one of the five races, and there are no obvious “free-space” favorites in any of them.

Here’s a quick rundown of those races:

Race 4 : Four More goes from turf to Polytrack while dropping in for his first claiming tag and adding jockey Joel Rosario. He seems a logical – if shaky – contender, while Margin, Rico Rolando, Napa Valley, and Spa City Treasure all will be seriously considered as well.

Race 5 : Purely Hot was good enough to run second to Groupie Doll last summer in the Grade 2 Masters at Presque Isle, and there is little doubt that running line could make her a solid favorite in this starter allowance. But her form clearly tailed off at year’s end, and she seems vulnerable when returning from a four-month layoff in a big field in which any number could spring an upset.

Race 6 : With just eight starters, this co-featured first-level turf allowance would seem to offer the best opportunity for a single ... but no. There’s hardly a throw-out in the group, as Heart to Heart, Jessica’s Star, Xtra Luck, Part, and Angry Moon all would figure.

Race 7 : Maybe a handful of the 12 in this other co-featured allowance can be quickly eliminated from a ticket, but that still would leave you to pick and choose from Sky Captain, Mio d’Oro, Fight the Tide, Little Distorted, Let’s Go Ben, Lofty Heart, and Sky Over Flats. And if one of the others just so happens to win, a double carryover would not be surprising.

Race 8 : Again, there are some tosses amid an oversubscribed field, but whittling this one down to even three or four logical plays looks exceedingly difficult. The Chad Brown rail-drawn filly Cinnamon Spice will be on many tickets, but so will Smart Ashley, Storm Now, Overtone, Easton Arch, Closer to You, Sward, and Jane Peterson.

First post Wednesday is 1:05 p.m. Eastern, with the pick five starting at 2:38.