Rail good spot for Harris in Aqueduct allowance
Horsemen and horseplayers often curse the fates when their horse draws the inside post in one-turn races out of the chute. Contrary to common perception, the rail has been the place to be this spring in Aqueduct’s one-mile dirt races, and that’s where Harris breaks from against five opponents in Thursday’s $67,000, first-level allowance feature.
Entering the meet’s penultimate week, horses breaking from post 1 had won 12 of 40 one-mile races on the main track, a 30 percent success rate.
Harris is a lightly raced A.P. Indy homebred who, despite inexperience, is familiar with Thursday’s post-position situation. He ran third from the rail in his debut at seven furlongs and garnered his maiden win from post 2 in a one-turn, one-mile race at Gulfstream Park for Todd Pletcher back in 2012.
Now 5, Harris was sidelined for more than 1 1/2 years. He comes off a big return effort at Gulfstream last month, when second to the odds-on Coin Broker after setting the early pace and earning a 92 Beyer Speed Figure.
Iron Power and The Big Deluxe also have early speed and appear to be in sharp form.
Iron Power comes off a front-running victory in a New York-bred allowance for Mike Hushion. Iron Power is 3 for 3 when on the lead at the pace (pre-stretch) call but 0 for 7 otherwise.
The Big Deluxe, another New York-bred with a bulging bank account, has won five of his last eight starts while changing hands several times. He seems like a sprinter at heart but led to the final strides last out when nipped first time off a claim by Oscar Barrerra III.
Bemata, Touchofstarquality, and Winter Games have stretch punch, and any among them may benefit if the opening fractions become hotly contested.
Winter Games came from far back to win a two-turn, one-mile maiden race with blinkers Feb. 28 for Jeremiah Englehart, and he was likely too close to the early leaders at 1 1/8 miles on the main track a month later.
“He’s training well, had a real nice breeze coming into this race,” said Englehart, referring to a half-mile breeze in 48.20 seconds that was second-best of 46 moves on Belmont’s training track April 10. “Our objective is to try to get him off the pace more so than he was in his last race. There’s a fair amount of speed in here, so we are hoping to close into a hot pace.”