Aqueduct: Noble Moon gets back to work with eye towards Wood Memorial

Noble Moon returned to the work tab Wednesday morning for the first time since he won the Jerome Stakes on Jan. 4, breezing three furlongs in 38.95 seconds over the Belmont Park training track.

[ROAD TO THE KENTUCKY DERBY: Prep races, point standings, replays]

Noble Moon will skip the Grade 3 Gotham Stakes on March 1, trainer Leah Gyarmati confirmed Wednesday, and will likely be pointed to the $1 million Wood Memorial on April 5. Noble Moon missed three weeks of training due to a foot problem and has had to train around weather that closed the track for training for three days last week.

Gyarmati said she doesn’t believe Noble Moon has lost much from a fitness perspective, but with the Gotham just two weeks away she felt there wasn’t ample time to get enough training into the horse for that race.

Gyarmati may be represented in the Gotham by Deceived, a recent New York-bred allowance winner who worked three furlongs in 37.54 seconds shortly after Noble Moon breezed.

“There are not a lot of options New York-bred-wise. You got to look at all the open stuff, look somewhere else, or look at the Gotham for him,” Gyarmati said.