Dream Bigger the big name in competitive Notebook Stakes

Mission Wrapitup appears to have little chance Sunday at Aqueduct in the $100,000 Notebook Stakes. The other six New York-bred 2-year-olds entered in this six-furlong dash? All of them are plausible winners.

Dream Bigger figures the defined favorite in the Notebook, and rightfully so, but – from the rail out – Ny Traffic, Scilly Cay, Bank On Shea, Moonachie, and Harris Bay all have claims on contention.

Let’s start, though, with Dream Bigger, an odds-on favorite his last two starts and the 3-2 chalk when he debuted at Saratoga and finished second to Tiz the Law, among the best 2-year-olds in North America this year. Dream Bigger was beaten 4 1/4 lengths by Tiz the Law but had 14 lengths on the third-place horse and thus was an overwhelming favorite when he ran back in a New York-bred maiden race at Belmont – and lost again. Harris Bay, one of his Sunday opponents, beat him there by three-quarters of a length, but Dream Bigger took no prisoners third time out at Finger Lakes, where he won the six-furlong New York Breeders’ Futurity by more than 10 lengths. Dream Bigger was slow to change leads and wanted to lug in through the homestretch, but he ran his fifth furlong in a quick 12.16 seconds, nearly a second faster than any of his rivals, and broke the race open.

“I think he kind of ran his same race,” trainer Rudy Rodriguez said, asked about the addition of blinkers for the Finger Lakes start. “He’s still a baby, still learning. He’s such a big boy. The more races he gets into, the better he’s going to get.”

Rodriguez said he gave Dream Bigger a couple of easy weeks following the Sept. 30 start at Finger Lakes before getting him back on a steady work pattern.

“He looks like he’s coming into the race pretty good. If he continues to progress, I think he has a nice future. He’s shown a lot of talent from day one,” said Rodriguez.

Dream Bigger raced second behind a leader in his first two starts and is well drawn for a clean pressing trip from the outside post Sunday in a race with other serious pace players.

But what of Harris Bay? Did Dream Bigger, lacking focus, hand the Belmont maiden race to him, or did Harris Bay just take it? Harris Bay returned to action last month finishing third in the Sleepy Hollow Stakes at Belmont, and the son of first-crop sire Carpe Diem finished off that one-mile start like a horse who didn’t really want to run that far. Cut back to six furlongs Sunday with a strong pace in front of him, he could be dangerous at a fair price.

Moonachie won his six-furlong debut by more than 10 lengths and, like Harris Bay, could benefit from racing over a shorter distance than in his last start, a fourth-place finish Sept. 20 in the seven-furlong Bertram F. Bongard. Twice-started Scilly Cay and second time-starter Bank On Shea are last-out New York-bred maiden winners; both showed enough talent that standard early-career 2-year-old improvement could bump them into contention. Ny Traffic comes back less than two weeks after a somewhat troubled fourth in the Parx Juvenile and starts for the first time in statebred-restricted competition. He has speed and the rail, which might not be a good thing given the Notebook lineup.