Aqueduct: Strapping Groom ignores rabbit to win Gravesend
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Strapping Groom had no problem handling the double team, weaving his way to a 6 1/2-length victory in Saturday’s $100,000 Gravesend Handicap at Aqueduct.
Trainer Linda Rice entered Abra to serve as a “rabbit,” or pacesetter, to ensure that Strapping Groom wouldn’t gain an uncontested lead so that her other horse, Palace, could come from off the pace..
But Junior Alvarado, on the speedy Strapping Groom, avoided getting hooked up in a speed duel, engaged Abra outside the quarter pole and then glided easily to the front while drawing off to the emphatic score. Palace, who had defeated Strapping Groom in the Grade 3 Fall Highweight here last month, did get second, 4 1/2 lengths ahead of Abra. Broad Rule and Battier completed the order of finish. Frazil, the 2011 Gravesend winner also trained by Rice, scratched.
The win was the fourth from nine starts this year for Strapping Groom and first since he upset the Grade 1 Forego at Saratoga at odds of 15-1.
It was the 154th win of the year on this circuit for Jacobson, who is within five wins of tying Gary Contessa’s New York Racing Association record (159) for wins in a year by a trainer. There are six racing days remaining in 2013.
Jacobson told jockey Junior Alvarado to ride the race like Abra wasn’t even in the field. Abra, under Angel Arroyo, broke on top and ran an opening quarter in 23.21 seconds and a half-mile in 45.83 while maintaining a half-length advantage over Strapping Groom.
Coming to the quarter pole, Strapping Groom engaged Palace and by the three-sixteenths pole the race was basically over. Strapping Groom, a 6-year-old son of Johannesburg, covered the six furlongs in 1:09.74 and returned $5.40.
“My instructions were to ignore [Abra], make believe he wasn’t even in the race. That’s what Junior did,” Jacobson said. “He’s back.”
“I just waited for the horse to be clear in front of me,” Alvarado said. “I tipped outside, after that it was pretty much holding on. It was a nice ride.”
Jacobson said Strapping Groom had been dealing with a foot issue for a while after the Forego, but that has not been an issue for the last month.
“He’s just been getting better and better up to and after his last race where he finished second,” Jacobson said. “He just needed that race a little bit. Today it showed.”
A rubber match between Strapping Groom and Palace is likely for the Grade 3, $150,000 Toboggan here on Feb. 1.