ARCADIA, Calif. – A fun pick six is on tap Friday at Santa Anita, where economy-size tickets have a chance at a generous payoff.

Buoyed by a $94,783 carryover, at least $500,000 in new money is expected Friday in the $2 wager on races 4-9. The sequence looks winnable at relatively low cost, assuming a standout favorite delivers in an otherwise forgettable maiden-claiming sprint.

Many bettors will single the modestly talented Petite Ange in race 8. Never mind she lost her first 14 starts, Petite Ange faces a woeful field Friday.

BALTIMORE – Different venue, same surface.

The sloppy track that was in play for the Kentucky Derby two weeks ago at Churchill Downs has greeted horsemen this week at Pimlico as preparations continued Wednesday morning toward Saturday’s 150th Preakness.

Led by Kentucky Derby runner-up Journalism, seven of the nine horses entered in the Preakness were on the main track Wednesday morning at Pimlico, most going at a controlled pace over an extremely wet surface.

BALTIMORE – As an exercise rider for Rick Dutrow and then as an assistant to his brother Rudy Rodriguez, Gus Rodriguez has worked around his share of talented horses. In Phileas Fogg, Gus Rodriguez finally has one he can call his own.

A $62,500 claim last July at Saratoga, Phileas Fogg has won four of five starts for Rodriguez and owner Steve Shapiro’s Jupiter Stable. Friday, Phileas Fogg looks to give Rodriguez his first graded stakes victory as a trainer in the Grade 3, $250,000 Pimlico Special.

Slew’s Tiz Whiz, a Tom Wenzel trainee who won the 2022 Longacres Mile before finishing a very respectable third in the two subsequent editions, will make his seasonal debut in a $25,000 allowance going six furlongs Saturday at Emerald Downs.

Race 7 will be the 7-year-old gelding’s first start since finishing second in a similar allowance last August, but months-long layoffs are de rigueur for the versatile grandson of Tiznow. He’s spent his career at the Auburn, Wash., track, posting a stellar 9-5-4 line in 24 starts.

BALTIMORE – The field for Friday’s Grade 2, $300,000 Black-Eyed Susan Stakes at Pimlico won’t be confused with that of the Kentucky Oaks run two weeks ago at Churchill Downs.

From a betting perspective, that’s a good thing. The field of nine 3-year-old fillies doesn’t include a horse the caliber of the undefeated Good Cheer, who won the Kentucky Oaks as the 6-5 favorite.

Off a sharp win in an allowance race on April 13 at Keeneland, Top Gunner was nominated to step back into stakes company at various venues – and wouldn’t have been out of place. After all, he is a multiple stakes winner and graded stakes-placed for various barns, earning just shy of $800,000 in his career.

BALTIMORE – As Old Hilltop prepares to host one more Preakness weekend before a massive renovation commences, it’s fitting that there’s a solid chance for locally based trainers to pick up a victory in Friday’s $125,000 Hilltop Stakes for 3-year-old fillies on the turf.

April showers may bring May flowers, but May showers bring agita to horsemen and horseplayers alike.

All parties will be hoping the rain subsides long enough for Aqueduct to conduct at least some of its four scheduled turf races on Friday’s nine-race card.

Race 2 is a second-level allowance/optional $75,000 claiming event scheduled for 1 3/8 miles featuring a pair of intriguing runners from trainer Graham Motion.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – There is a mixture of winter-raced horses and layoff runners in the featured seventh race on the first Friday card of the Woodbine meet. She Makes a Point should be favored in the 1 1/16-mile allowance for fillies and mares with a $114,600 purse and a $32,000 claiming option.

She Makes a Point, who’s in for the tag, was an astute $25,000 claim here in November by trainer Norm McKnight for owner Bruno Schickedanz. She started three times on dirt during the winter at Oaklawn and finished in the money in all of those lucrative first-level allowance routes.

BALTIMORE – As the curtain closes on this incarnation of Pimlico Race Course, it’s only fitting that trainers Bob Baffert, D. Wayne Lukas, and Steve Asmussen have horses in the field for Saturday’s 150th Preakness Stakes.

Over the last 45 runnings, starting in 1980, that trio of Hall of Fame horsemen have combined to win the race 17 times. Baffert holds the record with eight, followed by Lukas with seven. Asmussen’s two Preakness wins were among the most meaningful of his 10,874 career victories, the most of any trainer.