Aqueduct: Trainer Pat Reynolds attempts comeback

Away from the game for more than 15 months, Pat Reynolds is attempting a return to training.

Reynolds, who has not started a horse since Oct. 28, 2010, claimed There Goes Molly for $7,500 out of Wednesday’s second race for owner Robert Lescault.

“A buddy of mine from Saratoga texted me a few weeks ago – `How’s your health? Do you still want to train horses?’ ” Reynolds said. “And I texted back `Who is this?’ ”

Reynolds, 60, trained horses from 1976 through 2010, winning 331 races from 2,618 starts. In 2001, he won the Grade 1 Carter with Peeping Tom, a horse he claimed for $40,000 the previous year and with whom he won six stakes.

In 2008, Reynolds won the Grade 1 Garden City at Belmont with Backseat Rhythm, a mare who also won stakes at Saratoga and Tampa for Reynolds.

Reynolds was also the first trainer of Big Brown, who won a turf maiden race at Saratoga in 2007 before being sold and transferred to Dutrow. In 2008, Big Brown won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness.

A lack of business and declining health led to Reynolds leaving the game in the fall of 2010. In the interim, his mother died and his wife’s mother and father also passed. Reynolds himself suffered from two bouts with pneumonia.

“Age catches up with everybody. It’s a little tough but I’m a little tough too,” Reynolds said.

There Goes Molly is a 4-year-old New York-bred filly who is 3 for 36, but finished in the money in her two starts prior to Wednesday, when she ran fifth.

“When I was with Stanley Hough in 1973, when he come out of Thistledown and he unseated the Winick family as the king of Calder, he would say when we would claim a horse ‘in three days from now if I can put a saddle on that horse I got a chance,’ ” Reynolds said. “I’m pretty certain I’ll be able to put a saddle on that horse in three days so I got a chance.”

Reynolds hopes he can pick up some additional owners in addition to Lescault.

“The goal is always to get better horses and win better races because it feels better when you win the better races,” Reynolds said.

Inherit the Gold heads Mr G.J.G.

Inherit the Gold, who returned to his 2011 form with a 6 1/4-length victory in last month’s Hanyesfield Stakes, heads a competitive seven-horse field entered to run in Sunday’s $75,000 Mr. G.J.G. Stakes for older New York-bred males at a mile and 70 yards.

Inherit the Gold won the Haynesfield by 6 1/4 lengths, running 1 1/16 miles in 1:43.05 and earned a 104 Beyer Speed Figure.

Inherit the Gold will break from the outside post and is reunited with Eddie Castro, his regular rider from 2011 when the gelding won 5 of 10 starts.

The field includes Spa City Fever, Icabad Crane, and Groomedforvictory, who finished a neck apart in the Alex M. Robb Stakes on Dec. 31. Inherit the Gold finished fourth in that race, compromised by a slow pace.