Four-day week, turf racing return at Aqueduct spring meet
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New York horseplayers won’t notice a big change when Aqueduct’s 19-day spring meet begins Thursday with an eight-race card.
The three-month winter season ended with five weeks of three-day racing. The four-day race week schedule, Thursday through Sunday, returns at the spring stand, save Easter Sunday (April 9). Turf racing is on the horizon, with the first ones in the condition book slated for April 7. After mostly listed stakes being offered over the winter, there are five graded events on the schedule for the spring meet, which ends April 30.
Four of those graded events will be held on April 8: the Grade 2, $750,000 Wood Memorial for aspiring Kentucky Derby candidates; Grade 1 Carter for older male sprinters; Grade 3, $250,000 Gazelle for 3-year-old fillies; and Grade 3, $200,000 Bay Shore for 3-year-old sprinters.
Though the bulk of the meet coincides with Keeneland’s spring season, there will be a trickling of horses – and riders – from down south sprinkled in among the standard fare.
A case in point is Thursday’s second-level allowance/optional $62,500 claiming feature, which sees High Oak, winner of the Grade 2 Saratoga Special in 2021, return to this circuit. High Oak, trained by Bill Mott for owners Lee Einsidler and radio personality Mike Francesa, was off for exactly one year after he clipped heels and fell at the quarter pole of the 2021 Fountain of Youth at Gulfstream Park.
He was ultimately diagnosed with bone bruising and was given ample time to recover. High Oak returned to the races at Gulfstream on March 5 with a last-place finish in an allowance race in which he broke from the rail and showed brief interest before backing up. Mott didn’t have a major excuse for High Oak, but the horse has trained forwardly since that effort and will be given another try at a different track.
“Maybe a smaller field, better post will help,” Mott said. “He certainly trained better than that.”
High Oak will break from post 5 under Trevor McCarthy in Thursday’s eight-horse field, which includes a salty group of seasoned runners going seven furlongs.
Big Engine won for the 11th time when he got up by a nose over King Angelo in this same condition on Feb. 18 going 6 1/2 furlongs. King Angelo and Sheriff Bianco, the third-place finisher from that race, are back in this spot.
The 9-year-old Happy Farm has two second-place finishes in this condition this year, including a nose loss to Amundson here on March 5. Happy Farm, trained by Mike Miceli, is a 12-time winner.
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