Tinseltown in top form for Stuyvesant

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Tinseltown, in peak career form, bids for his first open stakes victory in the Grade 3, $100,000 Stuyvesant Handicap Saturday at Aqueduct.

A 4-year-old colt trained by Jimmy Jerkens, Tinseltown faces six rivals in the 1 1/8-mile race, which has been shifted from the main track to the inner track. With heavy rain in the forecast, the Big A moved the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday cards from the main track to the inner to avoid problems like those that resulted in a cancellation on Nov. 9.

The Stuyvesant also features a rematch between Organizer and Carminooch, the one-two finishers in the Empire Classic, and the presence of the globe-trotting Billy Allen.

Tinseltown earned a lifetime-best 96 Beyer Speed Figure last time out with a rallying victory in a third-level allowance race at Belmont Park on Sept. 29. Combine that with a 95 Beyer in his previous race and you have a horse at the top of his game.

"He's run two good back-to-back races," Jerkens said. "He's a hard horse to figure out training-wise because sometimes he's very lazy. The way he is now, pretty sound and training good, I have to think he'll run good."

In his last race, Tinseltown surprised Jerkens by falling almost 10 lengths off the pace before launching the winning rally with Kent Desormeaux aboard for the first time.

"That was scary," Jerkens said. "He's the kind of horse you have to keep busy on the whole race. Kent didn't do that, and this horse will spit the bit on you. He fell way back but got lucky that they set a fast pace and backed up into him."

Desormeaux has the return call on Tinseltown, whose only stakes win came in the restricted Home of the Free Stakes at Belmont in May 2005.

Tinseltown, supplemented to Saturday's race for $1,000, zipped three furlongs in 36.12 seconds Thursday morning at Belmont.

"He blew out good," Jerkens said. "He'll have to run the race of his life to win it."

Organizer and Carminooch take their rivalry into open company. Organizer pulled off the upset at 22-1 in the Empire Classic for the biggest win of his career. He defeated Carminooch by three quarters of a length in that stakes, restricted to New York-breds at Belmont on Oct. 21.

The well-traveled Billy Allen is winless in eight starts this year in a campaign that has taken him to Dubai, France, and Germany.