Hit the Woah needs pace to set up her run
?q=100)
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Hit the Woah will try to begin her 5-year-old campaign better than she ended her 4-year-old season when she returns to the races Friday in a third-level allowance scheduled for six furlongs over Aqueduct’s outer turf course.
Hit the Woah is making her first start since she finished seventh of eight in the $150,000 Autumn Days Stakes here Nov. 27. Hit the Woah got squeezed and steadied back to last early in the Autumn Days, a race run over a well-worn turf course that had plenty of moisture in it. Friday will be the fourth day of turf racing this season and with a lack of rain, the course is decidedly firm.
In her six starts prior to the Autumn Days – all allowance races – Hit the Woah had two wins and never finished worse than third.
Trainer Christophe Clement gave Hit the Woah the winter off, and she began breezing on March 3 at Payson Park.
“I’m running her back maybe a week earlier than I wanted to run her, but it was either that or nothing,” Clement said. “It’s not an easy race but she fits.”
Hit the Woah does her best running from off the pace, so Clement is hoping either Goin’ Good, Mosienko, and/or Mac the Pee H Dee show some early speed.
“The course is very speed favoring at the moment,” Clement said. “You don’t have to be on the lead, but you have to get a position.”
Trevor McCarthy rides Hit the Woah from the rail.
Goin’ Good, trained by Brad Cox, has competed in eight consecutive stakes, including a victory in the off-the-turf Coronation Cup at Saratoga in 2021. Her last allowance appearance resulted in a win back in June 2021. She has raced twice this year, finishing third in the Mardi Gras Stakes behind the in-form Oeuvre, a winner of 9 of 10 starts.
Manny Franco rides Goin’ Good from post 2.
Mac the Pee H Dee won her maiden over the Aqueduct turf last April and then dead-heated for an allowance win in her next start at Belmont Park. She has only run twice since and is skipping a condition in this spot.
“She’s got speed and the way the turf is playing it might be a good thing,” trainer Jorge Duarte Jr. said. “This will help us make a decision where we’re at with her.”
Dylan Davis has the call from post 5.
Poppy Flower makes her 4-year-old debut in this spot for Bill Mott. Poppy Flower won a pair of stakes at 3, including the Stormy Blues at Laurel Park and the Galway at Saratoga. She has not run since a fifth-place finish in the $471,000 Music City Stakes on Sept. 13 at Kentucky Downs.
Over the last two years, Mott is 5 for 40 with a 58-cent return on investment on turf with horses returning from a layoff of more than 180 days, according DRF Formulator.
Mosienko, trained by Dennis Lalman, is 0 for 6 on turf. Spun Glass, a restricted stakes winner at Colonial Downs last fall, is 0 for 2 this year for trainer Michael Trombetta.
:: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.