ELMONT, N.Y. – Everyone is naturally looking ahead to Saratoga, but interest in an otherwise ordinary card on Thursday is heightened by a pick six carryover of $251,315 as a short final week at Belmont begins.

The skull-busting exercise includes four maiden races, and numbers 57 betting interests, assuming there is turf racing. It gets under way with race 4, a $35,000 beaten claimer scheduled for seven furlongs on turf, at 2:26 p.m. Eastern.

Here is the rundown:

Although entries for the first three days of racing at the California State Fair at Cal Expo in Sacramento are light, racing secretary Tom Doutrich has reason to be hopeful that the eight-day meeting will prove as successful as last year’s did. The Sacramento meeting begins Thursday and ends July 22, with racing Thursday through Sunday on both weeks.

“We actually have 75 more horses stabled on the grounds,” Doutrich said. “Having a few more horses on the grounds is good.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainer Malcolm Pierce returned from his annual sojourn in New Orleans this spring with a pair of potential candidates for the $1 million Queen’s Plate.

Dead On and Aldous Snow, both homebreds who race for Pierce’s major client, Sam-Son Farm, had shown enough in their 2-year-old campaigns to be considered as long-term candidates.

As it transpired, neither Dead On nor Aldous Snow was in the lineup for the June 24 Queen’s Plate over 1 1/4 miles on Polytrack.

Trainer Bill Kaplan reports that his two Summit of Speed winners Musical Romance and Another Romance both came out of their races well and that they, too, could be headed to Saratoga later this summer.

Musical Romance repulsed a strong bid from Nicole H in late stretch to register a half-length decision in the Grade 1 Princess Rooney. Another Romance rallied from far back to win the Grade 3 Azalea by 1 3/4 lengths over Citizen’s Advocate.

Kaplan described the Princess Rooney as a very typical race for Musical Romance.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – The unbeaten It’s Gail will test her skills on the grass in Thursday’s seventh race at Woodbine, 1 1/16-mile allowance for Ontario-sired females.

It’s Gail came from 10th to land her debut in a seven-furlong maiden special on Polytrack June 2, for which she got a 55 Beyer Speed Figure. Three weeks later, she won a 1 1/16-mile Ontario-sired allowance on the main track with a solid 71 Beyer Figure.

It’s Gail is by emerging turf sire Niigon, but there’s very little turf breeding on the dam’s side of her pedigree.

[bc_video_id:256787:]INGLEWOOD, Calif. – A tricky pick six Thursday at Betfair Hollywood Park begins with a carryover of $111,858, and though most fields are small, the sequence is far from easy. It lacks an obvious single and is filled with potentially vulnerable favorites.

The lowest-level race in the pick six (races 3-8) may include the most probable winner – Three Buttons Down, a $20,000 maiden claimer in race 4. One race later, Antidote is favored in race 5, though he already has lost 10 straight at the first allowance condition.

MIAMI – Fort Loudon and Trinniberg put on quite a show in last Saturday’s Grade 3 Carry Back at Calder, and there’s a good chance the two locally based colts could meet again Aug. 25 at Saratoga in the Grade 1 King’s Bishop.

BOSSIER CITY, La. – Trainer Eric Heitzmann has been fined $1,000 by track stewards for being the aggressor in an altercation in the Louisiana Downs paddock last Thursday afternoon. In addition to the fine, Heitzmann has been ordered to undergo anger management counseling.

The cast of characters may have changed slightly after last Saturday’s $50,000 Par Four overnight stakes for 2-year-olds was redrawn and rescheduled for Thursday at Delaware Park. But it remains a hard to decipher puzzle for handicappers.

Five of the nine colts and geldings entered in Thursday’s ninth race are fresh from winning their career debuts by at least three lengths, so there are a lot of different directions a handicapper could go in trying to pick the right horse.

It Happened Again heads a field of seven in the $100,000 Golden Bear, an open stakes for 3-year-olds and up going 1 1/16 miles, on Wednesday's closing night 13-race card at Indiana Downs.

The 6-year-old It Happened Again will be running for the first time for trainer Tom Amoss after coming from the barn of Chris Richard. Owned by Maggi Moss, It Happened Again finished third in the Rasmussen Memorial at Prairie Meadows two starts ago going the same distance as the Golden Bear.