Super Screener preview: Santa Anita turf races offer opportunity

The coast-to-coast Pick 5 returns on Saturday. The sequence begins with races 10 and 11 at Gulfstream, with the first race kicking off at 4:35 p.m. EST. It continues with races 5-7 at Santa Anita.

That makes race 5 at Santa Anita, the California Cup Oaks, a part of three different Pick 5 sequences at the Great Race Place. It is the middle leg of the coast-to-coast Pick 5, the final leg of the low-takeout early Pick 5 and the first leg of the late Pick 5.

And Mike Shutty of Super Screener fame thinks there is opportunity in this one-mile turf race for California-bred 3-year-old fillies.

"This is one of the better wagering opportunities on the Saturday Anita Card with 9 fillies signed on," Shutty said in this weekend's Super Screener. "It presents a challenging handicapping puzzle as several fillies will be making their turf debut and others will be taking on a route for the first time."

Shutty expects a hot pace with heavy pressure on the frontrunners, which he sees as a positive for the top-value horse Prancingthruparis.

"This Peter Eurton-trained filly won her debut in a five-furlong sprint affair at Del Mar but then switched to dirt," Shutty said. "Form-cycle analysis is projecting a move forward with the switch back to turf and negotiating a route for the first time, which adds more confidence because the barn is quite effective with the 'first at a route' move."

Prancingthruparis is 8-1 on the morning line. The public choices project to be either Grand Slam Smile (5-2) or Sushi Sticks (3-1), but Shutty identified them as only marginal contenders with Asada Fries (4-1) a potential value play as well.