Aqueduct: Prohibition in career form for Monday allowance

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Cal Lynch has never been one to push Prohibition.

So while the New York-bred Prohibition looked like a stakes horse winning a first-level allowance race here at Aqueduct by 15 1/4 lengths on Jan. 23, Lynch was looking for something a little easier. Initially planning to wait another three weeks to run the gelding in an allowance, Lynch entered Prohibition in a $59,000 second-level allowance race on Monday, one of three New York-bred allowance races scheduled for Aqueduct’s nine-race program.

“I was going to wait for the March 1 race, but this race was there, the horse is doing very well, we drew a nice spot, and [Stewart Elliott] wants to go ride him,” Lynch said Saturday from his base at Parx. “The horse is training very well since his last race. If he wasn’t doing so well, we wouldn’t be running him.”

Prohibition has won all three of his starts since Lynch claimed him for $7,500 from Paul Pompa Jr. and Pat Reynolds at Delaware Park last September. Though Prohibition got a modest 77 Beyer Speed Figure for winning a $16,000 claimer on Nov. 18 at Parx, Lynch felt that race was underrated considering how much trouble Prohibition encountered. After winning a starter race around two turns on Dec. 31 at Parx, Prohibition galloped to a first-level New York-bred allowance win here on Jan. 23, earning a career-best 91 Beyer Speed Figure.

Prohibition won that race on the lead, but he has shown the ability to win from off the pace as well. Breaking from post 10 gives Elliott options.

“Going a mile and a sixteenth, he’s got enough time to get position,” Lynch said. “He doesn’t have to be on the lead. I thought his best race for us was his first when he sat behind horses. He’ll switch off and accelerate.”

Among the chief rivals for Prohibition is Street Lord, a gelding by Street Hero who has finished second in this condition each of his last two starts. Street Lord has a win and two seconds from four starts since Charlton Baker added blinkers to the gelding’s equipment. His other race in that span was on turf.

Baker said that when Street Lord ran fourth on Aug. 18 at Saratoga, “he was just lethargic from the start, made a run on the turn but just wasn’t where I wanted him to be. I think blinkers put him a little bit closer and tactical in a way where he can do what he wants to do.”

Ghostly Vision, Sinistra, Go Get the Basil, and Zetterholm are other contenders in the field.