Watchmaker: How I'd play Aqueduct for Saturday, Dec. 3

At this point in the year, turf racing at Aqueduct can be inscrutable. With it being the end of the turf season in New York, some horses now seem incapable of reproducing form that would have been superior a month or two ago. The problem is, identifying which horses are simply out of gas and which still have a big effort left in them can be guesswork.

Moreover, the Aqueduct grass course seems as though it’s tricky for some horses. And even though the Northeast has been in a drought, the heavy rain this area received the middle of this week suggests the course on Saturday might be difficult for many horses to handle.

That Saturday’s nine-race card has four grass races strategically spaced apart is problematic for a multi-race exotics fan like yours truly. Only two dirt races – races 5 and 6 – are scheduled back to back, so my play at Aqueduct Saturday will be a double on those two races. I know. It’s not as sexy as a pick five play. But what can I do?

My main position in this double play is I’m that not enamored of Summer Revolution, the morning-line favorite in race 6. Summer Revolution ran well winning the first two starts of his career, and his fourth in the King’s Bishop to subsequent Breeders’ Cup Sprint winner Drefong was a good effort, too. I can even forgive his ninth in the Pennsylvania Derby because he was, in a sense, thrown to the wolves that day. But I didn’t care for his soundly beaten second at 2-5 most recently while dropping back down to the overnight level.

I’ll use only Whitmore (1) in the sixth race. I was a fan of Whitmore from early on, and in my view, his seconds in the Southwest and Rebel and third in the Arkansas Derby showed how good he really is, because I truly believe Whitmore is at his best as a one-turn closer at this stage of his career. I like that Whitmore shipped from Churchill for this, his first start since a forgettable outing in the Kentucky Derby, and love that he is returning at a sprint distance, though he is scheduled to stretch back out after this outing.

I’ll use four horses in race 5. Afleet Martini (1) is logical off the switch from turf to dirt, which he much prefers, and off the class drop to the level at which he finished second three and four starts back. I’ll also use Monte Man (4), who beat a capable dropdown in his maiden victory most recently, leaving the third finisher nine lengths back; Virga (8), who lost his best chance last time after a bad start, and who now goes first off the claim for the white-hot New York division of the Steve Asmussen barn; and Timber (3), who goes first off the claim for Chris Englehart, and who I suspect might really want to sprint on a fast track, which is what he gets to do Saturday.

The play

Race 5: double - 1, 3, 4, 8 with 1. I’ll also press the 1 and 4 in the first leg.