Big Engine, Captain Bombastic should sit good trips in Affirmed Success

ELMONT, N.Y. – Big Engine and Captain Bombastic both should get the right setup to be successful in Friday’s $100,000 Affirmed Success Stakes for New York-breds going six furlongs at Belmont Park. It’s just a matter of whether Big Engine can fire another big race off a short turnaround or if Captain Bombastic is ready to go off a six-month layoff.

The Affirmed Success, named after the three-time Grade 1-winning Kentucky-bred and earner of $2.2 million, is the first stakes of the Belmont Park spring/summer meet. It goes as race 8 on a nine-race card that begins at 1 p.m.

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Big Engine, a 6-year-old son of Not for Love trained by Linda Rice, won an open second-level allowance race by 1 1/4 lengths on April 8 at Aqueduct. The 15-day turnaround is the shortest in Big Engine’s career, which has seen him finish first or second in 14 of 21 starts.

Jose Ortiz rode Big Engine in his last race and will be back aboard Friday.

“It’s back a little sooner than you would like, but you couldn’t pass up the opportunity,” Rice said. “Jose had never been on him. He’s more familiar with him, so that should help.”

Big Engine has run only twice in stakes, finishing second to Tribecca in last year’s Hudson Handicap here and second to My Boy Tate in February’s Hollie Hughes at Aqueduct.

In the Hudson, Big Engine finished in front of Captain Bombastic, who was third as the 2-1 favorite. That was Captain Bombastic’s first loss in four starts at Belmont Park. At 2, he won his maiden and the Sleepy Hollow at Belmont and at 3 he took the Mike Lee there. Trained by Jeremiah Englehart then, Captain Bombastic was transferred to Chad Brown by Team Hanley Racing at the end of last year.

Brown said Captain Bombastic had a break at Stonestreet Farm in Ocala, Fla., before joining him at Palm Meadows in South Florida, where he began working in February.

“Fortunate to have him, came in in good shape,” Brown said. “He’s a nice horse, and we’re just looking to keep him where he’s at. He’s had a nice career up to this point. Hopefully, he gets his season started off the right way.”

Captain Bombastic is the 124-pound highweight and will break from post 3 under Javier Castellano.

Bank On Shea, who won the $500,000 Great White Way division of the New York Stallion Series in December 2019, came off a 13-month layoff to win a first-level allowance at Aqueduct by a nose in March. The horse he beat, O’Trouble, came back to win that condition by a nose on April 8.

Likely to be forwardly placed in the Affirmed Success are Runningwscissors, third behind Big Engine on April 8; Wudda U Think Now; a New York-bred allowance winner on March 14; and Winners Laugh.

Winners Laugh is making the ambitious leap from a debut win to a stakes. The horse he beat, Sinful Dancer, came back to finish second as the favorite in last Saturday’s Times Square division of the New York Stallion Series.