Same two prime players in redrawn Toboggan
RACE REPLAY IS NOT AVAILABLE
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – The field has ballooned to nine, but Sunday’s rescheduled, Grade 3, $150,000 Toboggan Stakes at Aqueduct still looks to be a two-horse race between Green Gratto and Dads Caps.
The Toboggan, run at six furlongs, had six horses when it was originally carded for last Monday. That card was canceled due to high winds. Sunday’s card is in jeopardy as well, with a blizzard warning in effect from Saturday morning to 1 p.m. Eastern on Sunday.
Dads Caps, who beat Green Gratto last April in the Grade 1 Carter, has not run since June 5, when he finished third in the True North at Belmont Park. Rudy Rodriguez, the trainer of Dads Caps, doesn’t think the extra week is going to hurt his horse, but he believes it will help Green Gratto, who last raced Dec. 26, when he won the Gravesend.
“He’s got an extra week. That’s going to help him,” Rodriguez said. “Our horse is ready to go.”
Each horse got in another workout, with Dads Caps going a half-mile in a bullet 48.01 seconds on Thursday and Green Gratto blowing out three furlongs in a bullet 36.75 on Friday.
“He went really, really well,” Gaston Grant, the trainer and part-owner of Green Gratto, said Friday. “He’s on his game, looking forward to the run.”
Green Gratto got the better of the redraw, moving from post 2 to post 8. Dads Caps, who originally drew post 6, has moved to post 4.
Captain Serious, Fabulous Kid, and Mewannarose were new shooters to the Toboggan field after an allowance race failed to fill.
Toboggan, Race 8
KEY CONTENDERS
Green Gratto (Last 3 Beyers: 107-101-101)
◗ This New Jersey-bred 6-year-old is in career form, with two stakes wins and a nose loss in an allowance race in his last three starts. This will be his fifth race in 86 days.
“He just looks like he thrives on racing at this point,” Grant said. “Until he shows us signs of fatigue or slowing down, we’ll probably just keep on going with him.”
Dads Caps (Last 3 Beyers: 99-102-100)
◗ Makes his first start in 234 days and had a chip removed from a knee in the interim.
DRF FORMULATOR FACT: Over the last three years, Rodriguez is 11 for 41 with a $1.21 return on investment with horses returning from a layoff of 180 days or longer. He is 1 for 1 in graded stakes during that time, with Sage Valley winning the Grade 3 Maryland Sprint off a 190-day layoff.
Alex the Terror (Last 3 Beyers: 93-96-90)
◗ Third to Green Gratto in the Gravesend, he won two straight before then.
◗ Originally had the rail, which might have forced him to go to the lead and duel with Green Gratto. Now drawn in post 5, jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. should have more options to position his horse early.