Speaker's Corner comes streaking into Carter Handicap
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Patience has always been a trademark of Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott’s career. The reward for such a trait has been on full display so far this year with two of Mott’s older male dirt runners.
Both Olympiad and Speaker’s Corner missed the bulk of their 3-year-old seasons, but both have begun their 4-year-old campaigns in pristine fashion. Olympiad capped a 3-for-3 start to 2022 with a victory in the Grade 2 New Orleans Classic on March 26 at Fair Grounds.
Saturday, Speaker’s Corner looks for his third win of the year when he heads a talented field assembled for the $300,000 Carter Handicap at Aqueduct, the first Grade 1 of the year on the New York Racing Association circuit. The Carter goes as race 9, immediately following the Grade 2 Wood Memorial, on the 11-race Aqueduct card.
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Speaker’s Corner won both the Grade 3 Fred Hooper and Grade 2 Gulfstream Park Mile at Gulfstream this winter, earning, respectively, Beyer Speed Figures of 102 and 106. In both spots, the runner-up was Fearless, who came back to win last Saturday’s Grade 3 Ghostzapper at Gulfstream.
“They were both very good races,” Mott said. “I guess some would say the last one was a little better, but it’d be difficult to criticize either one of them.”
Though both were fast races, Mott said he doesn’t see any negative impact on Speaker’s Corner, a son of Street Sense owned and bred by Godolphin Racing.
“He looks great, he’s done very well,” Mott said. “From what I’m looking at, it looks like he’s improved.”
Both of his stakes wins came in one-turn mile races and in front-running fashion under Junior Alvarado. Speaker’s Corner is 2 for 2 at seven furlongs and came from off the pace both times, providing evidence when Mott testifies he does not need the lead to succeed.
“He’s put himself in that position the last couple of times,” Mott said. “The first one we didn’t really plan on being on the lead. He was in between horses, so rather than get into trouble [Alvarado] let him ease on in there and took the lead pretty much on his own.”
With Speaker’s Corner having the outside post Saturday, “it certainly gives him some options,” Mott said.
Seven of the eight horses in this field are coming off a win, while War Tocsin is coming off a second-place finish in the Grade 3 General George at odds of 48-1.
There does appear to be other speed in the Carter. Green Light Go comes in off two wins going a one-turn mile in which he was a forward factor for trainer Jimmy Jerkens. His inside draw (post 2) could prompt jockey Dylan Davis to get him into the race as he did winning the Stymie.
Bank On Shea, coming off a win in the six-furlong Pelican at Tampa, also has been successful when involved early on. In 2019, Bank On Shea won the $500,000 Great White Way division of the New York Stallion Series over this track.
War Tocsin was the pacesetter when he nearly pulled off his General George upset.
Mind Control, a two-time Grade 1 winner at seven furlongs and runner-up in last year’s Carter, returns from a 196-day layoff in the Carter. He is 4 for 6 over Aqueduct’s main track and has been working extremely well at Palm Beach Downs for trainer Todd Pletcher.
“Not an easy race, but he’s had some good works,” Pletcher said.
First Captain, who won the Grade 3 Dwyer as a 3-year-old, came off a 212-day layoff to narrowly win an allowance at Gulfstream for trainer Shug McGaughey.
“For him to make up ground like that [at Gulfstream] off what I had done with him I thought was very good,” said McGaughey, who won the 1990 Carter with Dancing Spree.
Drafted ended a 12-race drought that spanned 35 months when he captured the Grade 3 Toboggan here Feb. 5 for trainer David Duggan.
Reinvestment Risk, who wintered at Payson Park in Florida, came off an eight-month layoff to win a first-level allowance race Feb. 26 at Gulfstream, earning a career-best 103 Beyer Speed Figure.
“The horse ran big, he got the big figure, and he looks like a horse that’s going to take another step forward,” said Chad Brown, who trains Reinvestment Risk. “His last work at Payson was the best I’ve seen from the horse. He’s going to need it, this is a nice group of horses. There are three or four horses I hold in high regard.”