12/16/16 By Shawn Rychling
Before we get going on this week’s blog entry all of us here at the New York Hot List want to wish all of you fans of New York racing a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and your family – no matter what holiday you celebrate – and also a Happy New Year. Christmas is just about a week away and here’s hoping Santa Claus leaves plenty of winners under your tree or in your stocking for 2017!
We are just over a week into the inner track winter meet at Aqueduct and we’ve already seen a little of everything. Take last Thursday for example. The first three races – and 4 of the first 6 – were won in wire-to-wire fashion. The inner track has always had a reputation for favoring speed and frontrunners and that Thursday card certainly kept that reputation intact.
In addition to the speed bias, the card finished with longshots winning the last two races at 70-1 and 19-1 respectively. And those two results sent the Pick 6 into a 4-day carryover with a pool of more than $837,000. Wouldn’t you know, the pick 6 was finally hit the next day in a chalk-stuffed sequence that saw favorites winning 4 of the first 6 races and not a single winner going off at better than odds of 7-2. The winning combination paid a mere $2,934 from a pool that topped $2.7 million! Obviously a ton of winning tickets were out there.
As for this week, we’ve already seen a staple of the Aqueduct winter – a cancellation! Thursday’s card was nixed after a cold front plunged temperatures and brought some high winds. With the forecast for more cold Friday and snow this weekend we could see at least one more cancellation.
And after the weekend NYRA is taking an extended Christmas break as Aqueduct will go dark from Dec. 19-28 and be back in action on Thursday Dec. 29. The stakes schedule is out and the Derby Trail in N.Y. will start Monday Jan. 2 with the Grade III Jerome for 3 year-olds at 1 mile and 70 yards.
More on the stakes and 2017 schedule in future blogs.
Don’t forget – weather permitting – the Hot List has full cards at the Big A from Friday through Sunday and you can get all of our analysis on the Interbets site right here.
Good luck and once again Happy Holidays to all of our fans!