Litfin's preview: Pick six a puzzler

Wednesday, June 4 preview

$29,573 PICK SIX CARRYOVER

After a Sunday sequence that included four winners at odds ranging from 5-1 to 14-1, a pick six carryover of $29,573 is on tap as Belmont Stakes week gets under way.

The pick six begins at 2:53 p.m. Eastern with race 4, a rather inscrutable-looking maiden claimer for New York-breds scheduled for the inner turf. The best grass Beyers belong to Born in Brooklyn and Wake Up and Go.

WIDE-OPEN AFFAIRS

The middle portions of the pick six contain several potential minefields:

Race 5 – Just about anything goes in this six-furlong starter allowance, where six of the seven entrants have Beyer tops in the 66-to-70 range. The lone exception, Get Busted, won his debut in the slop at Aqueduct, has since been gelded, and is first-time Lasix.

Race 6 – A puzzler of a $25,000 claimer scheduled for the inner turf at 1 1/8 miles. Although the seven entered for turf are a collective 0 for 11 at the distance, Sleepless Knight ran second in three graded stakes at the trip in 2011, and was beaten less than a length each time.

Race 7 – A difficult restricted claimer scheduled for the Widener turf, over which Flowing Mane ($34.80), Huge Asset ($16), Otoy ($21.80) and Papa Freud ($20.60) registered upset victories in 2013.

Bold Forest and Ducks Dock have won on the inner turf.

101 REASONS TO LAND ON ROCK FALL

Based on a scintillating second-out maiden victory for Todd Pletcher earlier at the meet, Rock Fall will be a prohibitive favorite in race 8, and the day’s nominal preliminary allowance feature looks like the place for budget-minded bettors to hang their hats in the pick six and the late pick four.

Rock Fall was off the board at Gulfstream Park on April 12, but freaked on a harrowed “good” track here a month later, wiring maidens by better than nine lengths and earning a 101 Beyer Figure.

Rock Fall appears favorably drawn outside his primary early rival, Sense of Peace, who returned from an extended absence on May 18 to beat restricted claimers as a first-time gelding, while wearing a bar shoe.