Litfin's preview: Battle for jockey, trainer titles heating up

Heading into the final week of the meet, Jose Ortiz holds a 22-19 lead in the jockey standings over his brother Irad, with 2013 titlist Cornelio Velasquez third with 16 wins. The Ortiz brothers are each named on six mounts Wednesday, and square off against each other in the 3rd, 7th, 8th and 9th races.

Tied for fourth with 11 wins are Manny Franco and Manny Esquivel. At meet's end, Esquivel is heading back to Arlington Park, where he was leading rider as an apprentice last year.

David Jacobson, who took last year’s spring crown 12-10 over Rice, has a 14-11 lead on Rudy Rodriguez in the trainer standings. With five wins, Linda Rice is among four tied for third along with Gary Contessa, Chris Englehart and Bruce Levine.

Jacobson has horses in four races Wednesday, notably the favored 8-5 entry of Rush Now and Street Thug in race 3, and Rodinia first off a claim in race 7.

R-Rod has just one starter, Denzel, the 9-5 morning-line choice in the opener.

The feature is race 5, is a $69,000 optional claimer with second-level allowance conditions scheduled for 1 1/16 miles on turf. As is typical early in the season, six of the seven grass-meant runners return from layoffs of varying durations.

Among them are North Slope and Sinatra, both idle since running in different races at Gulfstream Park Feb. 22. Sinatra steps up a notch, but students of time will like his chances based on a first-level allowance win in 1:41.06, which was faster than North Slope’s second-level race (1:41.60) later that day.

The temporary rails will be at 18 feet on the turf course.