Saturday TimeformUS Highlight Horse: Unmiztaken bred to improve with age and distance

Aqueduct | Race 5 | Post Time 3:16 p.m. (ET)

The majority of the entrants in this New York-bred turf allowance are older fillies and mares, but I think the younger 3-year-olds might have the edge here. The horse to beat is Cosmic Candy Girl (#9), who returns from a layoff following a productive 2-year-old season. She never finished out of the exacta last year, and just narrowly lost the Key Cents Stakes in her final start of the year. She got spun wide into the clubhouse turn that day and never saw the rail, so ground loss probably made the difference between winning and losing. She appears to have worked well during her brief preparation for this return, and it's natural to expect some improvement through maturity.

I just prefer fellow 3-year-old Unmiztaken (#6) at a slightly better price. She also showed some talent last season, running well despite not winning her only turf start on debut. She set an honest pace and dug in gamely to just miss in a race that was falling apart in the late stages. She subsequently got rained off the turf and still won next time out. Her connections then took a shot in that lucrative New York Stallion Series stakes at the end of the season, where she was hardly disgraced staying on for fourth after getting off to a poor start. That effort gives me some hope that she'll handle added ground, and her pedigree also offers hope. She's out of a dam who was a 5-time turf route winner and is a half-sister to multiple turf route winner Miztertonic. This filly has the early speed to control the race on the front end.

The others that I would include are Heavenly Light (#1) and Lady Wisdom (#3), who both get back on turf for the first time since early in their careers. They actually finished noses apart in the same turf race in October 2024, where they each ran better than it looks getting wide trips.