Aqueduct handicapping roundup: Week of Feb. 15

By the numbers

Here are some notable numbers from the New York racing scene in recent days.

2: Longshot winners last week saddled by both Yvon Belsoeur and Chandradat Goberdhan.

Belsoeur sent out first-time starter My Girl Madison ($24.80) on Feb. 7, and the 3-year-old filly ran to a recent bullet workout from the gate to wire a New York-bred maiden special weight with apprentice Trevor McCarthy. The trainer struck again the very next day, when Two More Jacs ($43) rebounded from a pair of last-place finishes earlier at the meet to beat $12,500 claimers by more than five lengths under Manuel Franco.

The few hardy railbirds who didn’t fly south for the winter weren’t booing. They were chanting “GOOOOOO-BERDHAN” after the trainer notched his first two wins on the local circuit with Wildichi ($30) on Feb. 7 and Bebes Passion ($36) three days later. Both were ridden by seven-pound apprentices. Larry Mejias rode Wildichi; and Jonathan Zayas was aboard Bebes Passion, who garnered her maiden win on the 27th attempt.

5: Favorites that went down to defeat while racing on a seemingly deep rail Feb. 7, including My Lucky Lieu (7-10), Ten Items Or Less (9-5), Handy Stan (3-5), and Heir to Dare (3-4) in an early pick four sequence that paid $3,137. Also going down in flames was Velvet Cap (7-5) in race 7.

9.875: Average last-out Beyer Speed Figure (“speed” used loosely) of the experienced runners in the first leg of Saturday’s $250,000-guaranteed pick four, a $16,000 maiden claimer where three entrants didn’t run fast enough to earn a figure of any kind most recently.

42: Jackie Robinson’s uniform number and also the number of losses racked up by Cat Man Fu before his maiden win (by nearly four lengths) last Monday.

49: Races at 5 1/2 furlongs on the inner track through Feb. 10. (Three more were carded for Valentine’s Day.) On last Sunday’s program, they outnumbered those at six furlongs (4-3). There have already been twice as many of these short dashes than any previous winter, and six weeks still remain. As recently as the winter of 2008-09, there were only five. Given the relatively short run to the turn, you’d think inside posts would produce the highest percentage of winners. And, you’d be wrong: posts 1 and 2 have identical 8-for-49 records (16.3 percent), while post 9 is 3 for 12 (25 percent), and post 10 is 2 for 9 (22.2 percent).

50.60: The average $2 win payoff of nine meet winners trained by Randi Persaud, including a 4-for-9 run last week highlighted by Hackleton ($46.60), who upset a $50,000 optional claimer six days after being claimed for half that amount. It was Hackleton’s fifth win from six starts on the inner track.

1,084: Days between renewals of the Stymie, which was won by Goombada Guska back on Feb. 26, 2011, and failed to fill the past two years. Goombada Guska won just once from 16 subsequent starts, beating $7,500 claimers at Parx Racing two Februarys later.

390,786: Dollars bet to show on Gracer from a show pool of $424,335 in last Saturday’s Dearly Precious Stakes. She never gave the bridge-jumpers an anxious moment, despite the announcement of her retirement two days later due to a fractured sesamoid in her left front ankle.

8,000,000: Announced last week as the total purses for the blockbuster Belmont Stakes Day program of June 7, making it the second-richest racing day in North America behind Breeders’ Cup Saturday. Five stakes that were repositioned to that card – including the Met Mile, which was moved from its traditional spot on Memorial Day – received purse hikes totaling $2 million. That is roughly the projected revenue expected from increased admission and parking fees at Saratoga, if you’re scoring at home.