Belmont Park handicapping roundup: Week of Oct. 26

‘King for a weekend’

Next to the term “under the radar” in the dictionary is a picture of Richard Lugovich.

The Fair Hill-based horseman is the breeder, owner, and trainer of Royal Jest and Spritely Mambo, a pair of 3-year-old New York-bred fillies by King Cugat that ran big at boxcar odds when unveiled on the Widener turf last Saturday and Sunday.

On the Empire Showcase program, Royal Jest was 53-1 in a seven-furlong race and finished a clear second to favored Stock Fund (who finally grabbed the brass ring in her 23rd start, but that’s another story), completing a $319.50 exacta.

Handicappers who put 2 and 2 together might’ve caught Lugovich’s next well-meant newcomer, Spritely Mambo, whose five most recent workouts all matched up with Royal Jest. She scored Sunday by nearly three lengths and paid $46.80 to win.

The total purse haul for Lugovich was $63,000, minus 10 percent to Phil Teator, who rode both fillies. Teator, who shared the 1997 Eclipse for top apprentice with Roberto Rosado, was notching his second win on the circuit since Labor Day, when he was on longshot Tina’s Note ($78.50) in the slop at Saratoga.

And who was Lugovich’s last New York turf winner prior to Spritely Mambo? That was Disco On ($106.50), a second-time starter switching to grass at Aqueduct in November 2011.

Stakes doubleheader

Two $200,000 handicap races Saturday bring down the curtain on graded-stakes action at the fall meet.

History buffs somewhat confused about the whys and wherefores surrounding the Bold Ruler and Turnback the Alarm are forgiven, in view of their changing status recently.

For a quarter-century, the Bold Ruler was a six-furlong dash at Aqueduct (1976-2001) and then moved to Belmont for a while (2002-2008) at the same distance. In 2009, it was lengthened to its present seven furlongs and has alternated between the tracks, with renewals at the Big A in 2009 and 2011 and at Belmont in 2010 and 2012.

The Turnback the Alarm was a once-around Aqueduct’s 1 1/8-mile main track from its inaugural running in 1995 right through 2009, and once more in 2011. The 2010 and 2012 renewals, however, were run at Belmont at Saturday’s 1 1/1/6-mile distance.

Just so we’re clear.

By the numbers

Bold Ruler winners since 1990 have averaged a 109 Beyer Speed Figure, including high-water marks of 121 and 120 by Kelly Kip, the freakishly fast sprinter Allen Jerkens saddled to victory in 1998 and 1999. The only Bold Ruler winner to run a sub-100 figure was the Jerkens-trained Le Grand Cru in 2009.

It’s safe to say Kelly Kip would be 1-20 in Saturday’s edition, as the most recent dirt figures for this sextet are 94-86-90-79-92-95.

Strapping Groom is top-weighted at 122 pounds, and justifiably so, as he has won three stakes with triple-digit figures since claimed from his seasonal bow for a bargain $35,000, capped by a 15-1 upset in a sloppy Forego.

Although Strapping Groom couldn’t catch Breeders’ Cup Sprint-bound Private Zone in the Vosburgh most recently, he meets no speed merchants of that ilk this time and drew ideally on the outside.

My Miss Aurelia was assigned 123 pounds for the Turnback the Alarm, but opted to return in an overnight stakes Thursday, while Dance Card and Summer Applause, each weighted next at 119 pounds, pre-entered the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint.

That leaves Centring, who is winless since prevailing in an off-the-turf, first-level allowance last October, as the, ahem, “high-weighted” entrant at 117 pounds.

The wide-open nature of the Turnback the Alarm is further reflected by the fact that five others tote 116 pounds, along with two more at 115 and 114.

In the vernacular, that is referred to as a crapshoot.