Opening weekend at Aqueduct – November 6th through 8th – featured a strong gold rail on both the inner and outer turf courses, a bias that impacted every race, and numerous horses, run on the surface that weekend.
Over the next few weeks, likely the last few weeks of turf racing in New York this year, we’ll see some of those horses run back and provide some interesting betting opportunities. The first of those chances comes today in the second race, a Maiden Special Weight for two year old New York-breds.
#5 Athena Dancer (4-1) broke from post eight (and is #8 in the screenshots below) and was 2-3 wide on the turn, just unable to save ground.
Athena Dancer is the horse on the outside in the third flight (white silks, outside the rider in the green silks, who would win the race).
Then coming into the lane, Athena Dancer was spun wider (far outside in the picture below) and had no chance from that position.
She was only beaten eight lengths and missed third by 3/4 of a length, an excellent performance under the circumstances.
The trifecta in this race was composed of the #7 (4-path, orange cap), who saved ground behind the strong pace and came off the rail only in the lane, the #4 (on the lead), and the #10 (2-path, green cap), who moved to the rail in the stretch and held off wide movers. Each of those horses was able to save ground for a big chunk of the race, and the top two horses (who were over six lengths clear of everyone else), saved ground for the vast majority of the race.
Further, Athena Dacner’s trainer Wayne Potts is excellent in turf sprints, going 23-140 (16%) with a $2.27 ROI over the last five years per DRF Formulator (including 5-27, $3.01 with maidens).
We’ll use Athena Dancer with #2 Get the Candy (5-1), a first time starter by Twirling Candy for Michelle Nevin that is half to solid turf horse Rockin Jo and whose dam won her debut going two furlongs on the Santa Anita synthetic track in 2010. We’ll also use her with #9 Caumsett (3-1), who turns back from seven to six furlongs after showing speed in a fast paced race last month at Belmont for Gary Sciacca.
Finally, #10 Love’s Misery (12-1) who was the 11 horse in the Athena Dancer race above, was wide in there and ran on decently.
Good luck.
A Form & A Fedora 