Aqueduct handicapping roundup: Week of Jan. 11

ROCKY START FOR CHALK

Post-time favorites started 2014 as if seriously hung over from too much New Year’s Eve partying.

Favorites lost the first 17 races of 2014 before their streak of futility was finally halted at 20 overall when Cool It ($3.90) got a rail-skimming ride under leading apprentice Manuel Franco in the last race Jan. 2.

Several winners during that run had redeeming values on paper. Eye Luv Lulu ($16) was coming off a maiden win with a Beyer Speed Figure of 79, which was the top figure by five points in his optional-claiming sprint. Cease ($11), who capped off David Jacobson’s record-setting year as his 164th winner on the New York Racing Association circuit in 2013, had been freshened since fading in the Breeders’ Cup Marathon but had won his penultimate start and was the leading money earner in the field. Eyes of Midas ($9.20) had improved leaps and bounds in a top-figure win with blinkers Dec. 21 and scored again 12 days later.

STAKES REVIEW

Some thoughts on the first four stakes of the year.

Affectionately: Teen Pauline ($8) benefited when Welcome Guest, her only rival for the early lead, scratched in favor of the Nellie Morse at Laurel (where she was cooked in a duel at 3-2).

Left as the lone speed against three disadvantaged opponents, Teen Pauline walked the dog through easy splits of 24.49 and 49.21 seconds, and school was out.

“Front-runners that become lone speed after declarations make excellent bets because public handicappers have influenced horseplayers with selections of other horses,” wrote Joe Colville on page 2 of “Analyzing Front-Runners.” “Dave Litfin will give us a dirt horse with the stipulation the race must come off the turf when rain is forecast, but neither he nor any other public handicapper gives us a front-runner with the stipulation another front-runner must be declared for the selection to be a go.”

Sadly, Colville was explaining how the scratch of Dayatthespa from the Diana landed him on 6-1 winner Laughing, the ill-fated Eclipse Award finalist in the female turf division.

Interborough: No trainer got off to a hotter start in 2014 than Rudy Rodriguez, who capped a three-bagger on New Year’s Day when Lion D N A ($7.90), claimed at Saratoga for $35,000, got up late.

Perhaps this race should be renamed the Nicole H after the mare who won three straight renewals from 2011-13.

Jerome: Taking nothing away from Noble Moon ($3.60), who returned from a two-month layoff to repel challenges from both flanks in the stretch and win the 144th running of this once-venerable race, it no longer rates its current Grade 2 status.

For decades, the Jerome was a one-turn mile of fall or spring, won by the likes of Kelso, Carry Back, A Phenomenon, Housebuster, Fusaichi Pegasus, and Discreet Cat. But it was repositioned last year as the leadoff spot on the New York route to the Kentucky Derby, ahead of the $250,000 Withers and the $500,000 Gotham, which carry Grade 3 status but are worth more money – in the Gotham’s case, 2 1/2 times as much.

Noble Moon got an 85 Beyer. If his connections opt to run back in the Withers, waiting in the wings are Samraat and Uncle Sigh, a couple of New York-breds who recently ran off the screen and earned figures several lengths faster.

Busanda: After breaking several lengths behind the field in a first-level allowance a month earlier, Fierce Boots ($19) got loose early and became the third Busanda winner in four years for Todd Pletcher.

Pletcher, an odds-on favorite to win his sixth Eclipse Award next week, had previously won it with Dance Quietly, who never won again, and Princess of Sylmar, who won four Grade 1 stakes last year.

Princess of Sylmar ran the Busanda’s mile and 70 yards in 1:41.27. Fierce Boots, however, needed 1:46.62 to cover the same real estate, earning a so-so figure of 71.