Clear the Air looks ready to fire off the bench

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Clear the Air, an impressive allowance winner at Saratoga five months ago, returns to the races Thursday at Aqueduct on an eight-race card that includes a trio of solid allowance races.

Clear the Air runs in a third-level allowance/optional $80,000 claimer, that drew only five horses and kicks off the proceedings at 12:40 p.m.

On Aug. 4, Clear the Air, at 11-1, won a second-level allowance by 1 1/2 lengths in his return to dirt after four runs on turf. Of the seven horses Clear the Air beat that day, four of them won their next starts including Top Gunner, who captured the Parx Dirt Sprint.

Will Walden, the trainer of Clear the Air, said his horse came out of the allowance win sore and, combined with having run 11 times in nine months, was in need of a break. Clear the Air has worked six times at Turfway Park since late November, with the last two going five furlongs, which Walden feels will have him fit enough for the return.

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“His works have been good, consistent, solid,” Walden said. “He’s the first client horse I got outside of the 10 I started for Frank Taylor, so he means a lot to the barn.”

Clear the Air has enough speed to attempt to win this on or from just off the pace.

“Ideally his best trip was the race at Saratoga where he’s able to keep his face clean, be clear of traffic, sit and stalk and pounce at the quarter pole,” Walden said. “He’s got a quick turn of foot.”

Ramon Vazquez, aboard for the Saratoga win, is in from Arkansas to ride.

Light Man won the Hudson Stakes for New York-breds in October and is 4 for 6 lifetime at Aqueduct. He may have gotten used up in a pace duel when fading to sixth in a division of the New York Stallion Series run over a muddy track in November.

Surveillance, who won the off-the-turf Troy Stakes at Saratoga, was claimed by Linda Rice for $62,500 off a narrow loss to Full Moon Madness in a six-furlong allowance on Nov. 24. Surveillance, in for the $80,000 tag, is drawn nicely on the outside for Rice, who won nine races from 23 starters during opening week of the winter meet.

In race 7, a first-level allowance at 6 1/2 furlongs drew a field of 10 including Silo Ridge, who returns from a 11-month layoff as a new gelding for trainer Bill Mott. He hasn’t run since finishing fourth in this condition, at one mile, last Feb. 10.

“He was a real heavy horse before so we thought we’d get a little weight off him,” Leana Willaford, Mott’s assistant, said when asked about Silo Ridge being gelded. “He always trained pretty good, he just was hard on himself because he was so heavy.”

Silo Ridge’s lone win from five starts came the last time he ran 6 1/2 furlongs at Aqueduct, and off a layoff.

Laser Sharp came off a six-month layoff to win a first-level allowance race. Laser Sharp has two wins and three seconds from five starts on Aqueduct’s main track.

Shipsational and Crazy Mason each came off six-month layoffs to run second and fourth, respectively, in a first-level allowance going 6 1/2 furlongs on Nov. 30. Shipsational won three of his first four starts, including two New York-bred stakes in 2021. He is 0 for 17 since.

Beaver State, trained by Maryland-based Robert Bailes, shipped up to win a first-level allowance race by 3 1/2 lengths on Dec. 6.

Thursday’s card ends with a field of 12 newly turned 3-year-old fillies attempting to clear the New York-bred first-level allowance condition going 6 1/2 furlongs.

Boston’s Phinest comes out of a fourth-place in the $500,000 Fifth Avenue division of the New York Stallion Series after finishing second to With the Angels in the Maid of the Mist Stakes.

Princess Mischief, third in that same race; Nina Kay, second to the aforementioned and undefeated With the Angels in the Key Cents Stakes; and Valtellina, coming out of three stakes defeats to With the Angels, are other contenders in the race.

Idyll Gossip, who won the Shesastonecoldfox Stakes at Finger Lakes, and Carmen’s Candy Jar, three-times placed in New York-bred stakes, are others to consider.

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