Recruiting Ready tops Fall Highweight Handicap's third take

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – The only leftovers remaining from Thanksgiving is the Fall Highweight Handicap, which will have its third attempt at having its 106th running Sunday at Aqueduct.

The Fall Highweight was originally scheduled for Thanksgiving Day, but that card was canceled due to high winds. It was rescheduled for Dec. 1, but the Fall Highweight was one of five races scrapped when the jockeys refused to ride following the fourth race, citing icy conditions. Six of the original nine entrants are back in the Fall Highweight. Nicodemus is cross-entered in this race as well as Saturday’s Grade 1 Cigar Mile.

Recruiting Ready, the likely favorite, shipped in from Kentucky for the traditional Thanksgiving Day feature and stuck around New York City long enough to watch the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting. Well, he’s been in town long enough to fire a bullet half-mile workout in 47.00 seconds Thursday morning over the training track at Belmont Park. It was the fastest of 40 breezes at the distance.

If trainer Stanley Hough was worried about running Recruiting Ready back 26 days after he won the Bet On Sunshine Stakes at Churchill Downs on Nov. 2, he can’t use that as an excuse now. Recruiting Ready will now have five weeks between starts.

Jose Ortiz then Irad Ortiz Jr. were scheduled to ride Recruiting Ready the first two times this race was carded. Sunday, he’ll be ridden by Tyler Gaffalione, who was aboard for an allowance win at Churchill in September and a fourth-place finish in the Grade 2 Phoenix at Keeneland on Oct. 4.

Recruiting Ready will break from post 3, making him now the inside speed of the Fall Highweight. He will carry 132 pounds, spotting 3 to 10 pounds to his rivals. Strike Power, the Grade 3 Swale winner in 2018, Wonderful Light, and Seethisquick all have speed to try and test Recruiting Ready early.

Happy Farm, who for the second time in three draws got the outside post, looks to work out a stalking trip under Jorge A. Vargas Jr.

The Fall Highweight will be run as race 9 on a 10-race card that begins at 11:50 a.m.