Midtown Lights will be making her first start since June 28 when she faces seven older New York-bred fillies and mares in the featured seventh race at Aqueduct. And that might be a good thing. Midtown Lights returned from a two-month layoff last February at Aqueduct, and while she finished second in a New York-bred first-level allowance, the 77 Beyer Speed Figure her performance produced is a career best. And then there’s this: Since Midtown Lights last raced, her trainer, Brad Cox, has gone 28-10-3-6 with horses making their first start in 180 days or longer. That’s a 36 percent strike rate – and remarkable. During a portion of November, Cox won with five straight horses coming back from layoffs of that duration, one of whom was Comparative, who captured a second-level Aqueduct allowance at odds of nearly 7-1. :: Bet with the Best! Get FREE All-Access PPs and Weekly Cashback when you wager on DRF Bets. This race, for second-level allowance horses or $45,000 claimers at seven furlongs, is in dire need of some sort of angle. Its participants’ form exists in a dense, inscrutable cluster. Six of the eight horses have a career-best Beyer between 75 and 82. The outlier on the bottom is Queens Masterpiece, who has topped out at 65 but is a lightly raced and seemingly progressive 4-year-old, coming off a definitive Aqueduct win over New York-bred first-level allowance rivals. She holds more appeal than the 4-year-old filly with the race’s top Beyer, Timely Conquest. Timely Conquest began her career this past summer promisingly, winning her Belmont debut before airing in a Saratoga first-level allowance, hitting 86 on the Beyer scale. Things have not gone as well since. Timely Conquest might merely have failed to stay 1 1/8 miles finishing third by more than 20 lengths in the Fleet Indian on Aug. 27 at Saratoga. She didn’t race again until Nov. 16, when she was a flat fifth with no apparent excuse as the 7-5 favorite in a six-furlong Aqueduct race at this class level. Coming off another two-month break, Timely Conquest would be hard to take at a short price. Lady Mine is 2 for 2 since being claimed by trainer Jeremiah Englehart, those victories separated by more than six months. Both, including a Dec. 29 statebred-restricted first-level allowance win, came over wet tracks, though with snow in the forecast, Lady Mine might get her preferred off-going on Friday. With the rare exception, Sue Ellen Mishkin is a need-the-lead type, and she figures to be hounded by Timely Conquest. While Temperamental fits solidly at the level (she runs for the tag and won for the tag three back), she prefers a shorter trip, but another horse in for $45,000, Gone and Forgotten, could contend at fair odds. After making her first six 2023 starts at Finger Lakes, she finished second at Aqueduct going one mile at this class level despite a terrible start. Meanwhile, Missing Fortune stands a great chance of regressing while racing 15 days after earning a 77 Beyer, her second-highest figure. Cox’s horse, Midtown Lights, ran in three stakes before her layoff. She can handle a wet track, seven furlongs is right in her wheelhouse, and the stats say the filly will return ready to roll. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.