Prairie Meadows will host its annual Festival of Racing this weekend, awarding more than $1 million in purses. The fireworks will begin Friday, July 5, with four $100,000 stakes on the 10-race card. Here’s a look at the All-Stakes Pick 4 that costs only 50 cents to play:
PrM 6th race (9:10 p.m. EST) -- NECKER ISLAND (pictured), the lone millionaire in the $100,000 Iowa Sprint Stakes, trailed most of the way in the $200,000 St. Matthews Overnight Stakes at Churchill Downs to begin his 7-year-old season. But he’s worth a second look after facing the likes of multiple Grade 2 winner Hoist the Flag ($1.4 million), multiple Grade 3-winning speedball Skelly (10-16, $1.6 million) and Tejano Twist (9-34, $1.4 million) last year. BOURBON HEIST is 6/2-1-2 sprinting at various venues in the last nine months. The races that he didn’t win produced two next-out stakes winners and three allowance/optional claiming winners who all posted 94-plus Beyer speed figures. PEACE DOG emerged from a backstretch duel while 4-wide and drew away impressively from a nondescript field of allowance runners for his new trainer. He gets the class test tonight, but at least the price will be right to use him in the leadoff leg.
PrM 7th race (9:39 p.m. EST) -- OLGA ISABEL ran unchallenged on the lead en route to her first stakes victory in the $50,000 Prairie Rose. She faces more pressure in tonight’s $100,000 Saylorville but should overcome it as a solo play in the Pick 4. She set faster fractions than the $50,000 Ed Skinner Stakes for the boys on the same night and finished only 1/5 of a second slower in her seasonal debut.
PrM 8th race (10:08 p.m. EST) -- Eight entrants in the $100,000 Prairie Golden Lassie arrive off debut Maiden Special Weight victories, spanning five tracks. ELEGANT JUSTICE caught the eye with a stretch burst on the lead, albeit against three state-bred rivals at Horseshoe Indianapolis. SHEZAFUNKYDRUMMER lived up to the 2-to-5 hype in field of all first-time starters at Hawthorne, sprinting clear and never asked for run in a 4-1/2F romp. Interesting to note, winning jockey David Cohen will be aboard her stablemate, RICH CITY GIRL, who debuts with a flashy work tab for trainer Larry Rivelli. SPANKERBOOM seized the moment when the even-money favorite was in ‘cramped quarters’ on the turn and emerged from a 6-way battle for the lead that she held safe in the final sixteenth.
PrM 9th race (10:37 p.m. EST) -- Proven and improving route runners abound in the $100,000 Iowa Distaff at 1-1/16 miles, prompting an ‘ALL’ punch in the Pick 4. MAGICAL LUTE won an allowance at Churchill Downs two starts ago and sustained a 3-wide rally to finish third behind graded stakes-placed Opus Forty Two in the $50,000 Wayward Lass at Tampa Bay Downs to start the year. PIGALLE shook a duel with the second favorite and won off a six-month layoff in a six-figure allowance at Churchill Downs. LACIE BE GOOD’s five-race winning streak ended in a $100,000 stakes on Preakness weekend at Pimlico. TAKE ME SERIOUS is a two-time stakes winner against Oklahoma breds at Will Rodgers Downs. FLAT OUT STORMIN rallied to win the Hawkeyes Handicap at Prairie Meadows last fall.
Suggested 50-Cent Ticket
PrM 6th Race: 2, 5, 6
PrM 7th Race: 6
PrM 8th Race: 1, 2, 3, 9
PrM 9th Race: ALL
Cost for 50-cent ticket: $42
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