Annual Appeal should get the pace she needs in Aqueduct feature

OZONE PARK, N.Y.– Annual Appeal needs a strong pace to be most effective and she just might get it in Wednesday’s featured $44,000 first-level allowance race going six furlongs at Aqueduct.

In a field of mostly maiden winners, Annual Appeal, a 4-year-old daughter of Successful Appeal, has recorded three victories, all of them coming when the pace has been hot and heavy in front of her. The last of those victories came on Nov. 14 at Parx Racing when she came from seven lengths off the pace to win a starter allowance by one-half length.

In her last start – her first over Aqueduct’s inner track – Annual Appeal finished second to the runaway winner Stormandaprayer, a speedy filly who ran fast fractions albeit uncontested. Annual Appeal rallied five wide in the stretch and got up for second by a head over Alla Prima.

“She’s pretty one-dimensional, that’s why I was staying away from the inner track, because speed is usually good,” said Bruce Brown, trainer of Annual Appeal. “If she gets the right setup she should be a factor. She couldn’t be doing any better.”

There does appear to be ample speed in the field. Alla Prima, who chased Stormandaprayer in the last allowance race at this level, could try and make the lead in this spot under C.C. Lopez. She will likely find company from the likes of Spoleto, who goes first off the claim for trainer Richard Schosberg, and Does It Every Time, a speedy Malibu Moon filly who got used up in a speed duel at Parx Racing on Dec. 4.

Annual Appeal will break from post 2 under Eurico Da Silva.

Joyce’s Angel may have needed her last start when fourth, beaten 11 lengths in the same race Annual Appeal and Alla Prima emerge from. Joyce’s Angel was making her first start since May 29 when she finished third in an allowance race at Monmouth Park.

Trainer Rudy Rodriguez sends out the coupled entry of Beauty Is a Beast and Obey the Rules, both of whom are coming out of disappointing efforts in their last starts at this level.

Beauty Is a Beast did get checked at the quarter pole when making her first start in three months. Obey the Rules is cutting back to a sprint after setting the pace and tiring badly in a two-turn race last out. Her lone win came from off-the-pace sprinting.