Friday TimeformUS Highlight Horse: Mikealicious capable of better for new connections
Belmont at the Big A | Race 7 | Post Time 4:10 p.m. (ET)
The main track at Aqueduct has been favoring speed for several days now, and it's worth monitoring if that changes with some expected rain on Friday. If being in front is an advantage, Certified Loverboy (#1) could be pretty tough for this field to beat. He is moving up in class a bit here, but he has been in pretty strong form lately. You can throw out his race two back when he lost his jockey, though notably he did run past the field to cross the wire first riderless even on that occasion. The stretch-out to 1 3/16 miles has to be the major concern for this horse, since he hasn't run quite as well in his two-turn races. That said, he did contest a very fast pace going nine furlongs in January, and appears to be in better form now.
Some will gravitate towards the back class of Masqueparade (#2), but his good efforts have been few and far between as of late. He did run pretty well two back at Oaklawn, but that wasn't the strongest field for the level. He also hasn't performed at his best on wet tracks, which he's likely to encounter here.
Chileno (#3) makes some sense after finishing second at this level last time. Yet he didn't run nearly as fast as the 116 TimeformUS Speed Figure he achieved two back against claiming competition, and I wonder if he'll continue to move forward against tougher rivals. He also has to prove that he can produce a top effort going this far, as his better efforts have come around one turn.
I prefer a different horse from that April 13 race at this level. Mikealicious (#6) finished several lengths behind Chileno, but I didn't think he got the right trip given the race flow. Pirate dominated on the front end, setting slow fractions, and Mikealicious was not only rated towards the back of the pack but was glued to the rail with little chance to advance from there. He still finished decently to finish fourth, and I think he'll be capable of better from this outside post. He also gets some changes for this race. He is now in the barn of Carlos Martin, who has enjoyed a productive last few months. He also gets a significant rider upgrade to Ricardo Santana Jr.