Wishful Tomcat wins Aqueduct closing-day stakes

It was a most appropriate ending to the seemingly endless Aqueduct meet Sunday as Ramon Dominguez rode three winners on the closing day card, including a victory aboard Wishful Tomcat in the $69,875 Kings Point Handicap for New York-breds.

Dominguez ended the main track meet with 29 victories, seven more than Rajiv Maragh. That came after an inner track season in which Dominguez set a record for victories with 113. During the five months of racing since December, Dominguez rode three or more winners on an Aqueduct card an astonishing 27 times.

The victory by Wishful Tomcat enabled Richard Dutrow Jr. to edge out Bruce Levine for the main track trainer's title, 12-11. Gary Contessa, the kingpin of the inner track, finished third with 9 victories.

In the Kings Point, Wishful Tomcat was dropping out of three graded stakes to tackle restricted company. Riding to instructions, Dominguez hustled Wishful Tomcat to the lead and he was stalked all the way around by Manteca through splits of 24.72 seconds, 48.47, 1:12.00, 1:36.15 before completing the 1 1/8 miles in 1:48.96. Wishful Tomcat returned $4.20 to win.

Wishful Tomcat is entered back to run in Wednesday's Grade 3 Westchester at Belmont, but Dutrow seemed to be leaning against running him considering the Kings Point was a little tougher for him than Dutrow hoped.