Racing at Aqueduct returns with Bay Ridge, $49K carryover

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Following a 10-day holiday break, racing on this circuit resumes Thursday at Aqueduct with an eight-race card that includes a $49,302 pick-six carryover and is topped by the $100,000 Bay Ridge Stakes for New York-bred females.

The Bay Ridge, run at 1 1/8 miles around two turns, drew a field of five and figures to boil down to Ice Princess and Sharp Starr, who faced each other in the $250,000 Empire Distaff at Belmont Park on Oct. 30. That day, Sharp Starr defeated Ice Princess by 3 1/4 lengths, a performance she couldn’t duplicate when beaten 15 lengths in the Grade 3 Go for Wand Handicap at Aqueduct on Dec. 4.

“I ran my race, Sharp Starr just ran huge that day,” Danny Gargan, the trainer of Ice Princess, said Monday. “If she runs that race back, we’ll be second again. She’s not as consistent as we are. She freaked that day.”

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Gargan believes the 1 1/8 miles and two-turn configuration of the Bay Ridge favors Ice Princess, whose most recent victory came in a two-turn, 1 1/8-mile first-level allowance at Saratoga on Aug. 19. That race was run over a sloppy track, conditions that could be in play Thursday should the forecast prove accurate.

“She moves up in the mud,” Gargan said of Ice Princess.

Sharp Starr is 0 for 3 in 1 1/8-mile races, including a third-place finish in the 2020 Fleet Indian Stakes at Saratoga, a race in which Ice Princess finished second.

Trainer Horacio DePaz chose this race for Sharp Starr over Sunday’s La Verdad for New York-breds at seven furlongs, a race in which Sharp Starr finished second in January 2021.

“More than anything, the small field,” DePaz said about choosing the Bay Ridge. “Just figuring there are not a lot of fillies that really get a mile and an eighth. At Saratoga, she ran the mile and an eighth perfectly fine.”

When Sharp Starr won the Empire Distaff at Belmont, jockey Jose Ortiz took her back to last and got a solid enough pace to close into. There doesn’t appear to be as much pace on Thursday.

DePaz also entered Amity Island, who is coming off a first-level New York-bred allowance win going a mile on Dec. 10.

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Byhubbyhellomoney proved she could handle the 1 1/8 miles at Saratoga when she got up by a neck at 13-1 to win the Fleet Indian Stakes. Since then, she is 0 for 3 and finished a well-beaten second behind Bank Sting in a division of the New York Stallion Series going seven furlongs on Dec. 5.

“She won going long, she’s acting good, she’s eating good, so we’ll try her,” trainer Bob Dunham said.

Maiden Beauty, sixth behind Sharp Starr in the Empire Distaff, came back to win an open-company second-level allowance here going a mile on Dec. 19. She is also nominated to Sunday’s La Verdad.

First post Thursday is 12:50 p.m. The pick six starts on race 3 and the Bay Ridge goes as the seventh.