Pick six players eye carryover
ARCADIA, Calif. - A pick six carryover of $179,222 and an intriguing meeting between two improving older horses are the highlights of Wednesday's eight-race program at Santa Anita.
Awesome Dividend and Courtly Jazz risk three-race winning streaks when they meet for the first time in a $60,000 optional claimer. Both Awesome Dividend and Courtly Jazz are undefeated at this meeting. They have four other rivals in the one-mile sixth race.
The pick six covers races 3-8, a series that consists of five races at a mile or longer and one sprint on the hillside turf course.
is likely to go favored in the feature, having won five of his last six starts.
Trained by Bob Baffert, Awesome Dividend's winning streak began with a victory in an allowance at Hollywood Park on Dec. 20. He has won two races at this meeting - an optional claimer on Jan. 23 and a starter allowance on March 16. All of his wins have come at a mile or 1 1/16 miles.
, 4, lost his first four starts. He then won a maiden race on Dec. 30, an allowance race over 1 1/8 miles by two lengths on Feb. 4, and an optional claimer over a mile by a nose on March 11.
Trainer Gary Mandella is worried that the one-mile distance on Wednesday may be too short for Courtly Jazz, especially with Awesome Dividend capable of leading throughout.
"I feel he's better at a mile and an eighth or a mile and a quarter," Mandella said of Courtly Jazz. "I think that's why he was less impressive in his last race."
Courtly Jazz led in two of his three victories, but Mandella said the gelding is capable of stalking the pace.
Awesome Dividend may be joined on the front by a fresh Danthebluegrassman, who has not started in a year. Trained by Baffert, Danthebluegrassman is winless in his last six starts, dating back to an optional claimer at Churchill Downs in June 2003.
Fail Me Not, scratched from last Saturday's Arcadia Handicap for this race, won the restricted March Madness Handicap over a mile on turf on March 26.
Nose the Trade, unraced since finishing second in the Pomona Invitational last September, is entered for a $100,000 claiming price.