Wide-open field for Toboggan Stakes
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – There may be only five entrants in Saturday’s Grade 3, $100,000 Toboggan Stakes at Aqueduct, but it is difficult to dismiss the chances of any of them.
Skyler’s Scramjet, coming off a head defeat to Recruiting Ready in the $100,000 Gravesend Stakes here Dec. 23, is the likely favorite. The Gravesend was the first start in six months for Skyler’s Scramjet, who is 4 for 7 at Aqueduct, including a victory in the Grade 3 Tom Fool Stakes here last March.
“I thought he ran huge off the layoff,” trainer Michelle Nevin said of Skyler’s Scramjet’s effort in the Gravesend. “He was really laying it down trying to come to that other horse.”
Skyler’s Scramjet is winless in two starts at the Toboggan distance of seven furlongs, though one of those losses came in last April’s Grade 1 Carter Handicap.
Dylan Davis rides Skyler’s Scramjet under high weight of 124 pounds from post 2.
Bal Harbour is turning back to seven furlongs after finishing third, beaten two lengths, in the Queens County at 1 1/8 miles on Dec. 22. He is a two-time stakes winner at a one-turn mile, having won the Smooth Air at Gulfstream in December 2017 from off the pace and the off-the-turf Gio Ponti – against just two rivals – last November while on the lead.
“He’s pretty adaptable to different pace scenarios; he’s pretty versatile,” trainer Todd Pletcher said Thursday while at Belmont Park checking in on his New York string. “I would anticipate in this race he’d be sitting off the pace a little bit, but should pace not develop he’s capable of being more forward.”
Pletcher said he would leave race tactics up to jockey Junior Alvarado “based on how quick they’re going.”
Colonel Sharp could be the one with the most early speed in this field. Two starts back, he won a seven-furlong allowance race after setting sharp early fractions at Laurel Park. He came back six weeks later, on Dec. 29, to win the Dave’s Friend, a six-furlong race, by a head.
Solid Wager, an 8-year-old California-bred gelding, has been shipped cross-country by owner Gary Barber to compete in the Toboggan. A former Peter Miller trainee, Solid Wager is now with Chris Englehart. The gelding is a five-time winner at seven furlongs.
“That’s another reason they liked this particular stakes,” Englehart said of the distance. “The timing is right, they wanted to give it a try.”
Gold for the King is entered back just one week after finishing third as the favorite in the Say Florida Sandy, a seven-furlong stakes for New York breds.
With only five runners, the Toboggan is carded as race 5 (2:26 p.m. Eastern) on a nine-race card, keeping it out of the late pick-4.
