First Look: Peter Pan highlights week of N.Y. graded stakes

The traditional prep for what will be a non-traditional Belmont Stakes headlines this ’tweener racing week bridging the Kentucky Derby and Preakness.

The Grade 3, $200,000 Peter Pan, which vaulted its winner Arcangelo to success in last year’s Belmont, could have 12 starters, including Deterministic and Uncle Heavy, both Grade 3 winners on New York’s winter road to the Derby.

Stakes Tracker: See who will be in leading races.

Run as usual at 1 1/8 miles, the Peter Pan was moved to Aqueduct because of the rebuilding of the Belmont Park grandstand. It will feed the Belmont Stakes, which will be run at least the next two years at Saratoga and cut from 1 1/2 to 1 1/4 miles.

All four of this weekend’s graded stakes are part of the Belmont at the Big A spring-summer meet.

Saturday

Peter Pan (G3), Belmont at Aqueduct, 1 1/8 miles, 3-year-olds

Deterministic, who won the Gotham (G3) in March, tugged his way to an eighth-place fizzle as the 9-10 favorite April 6 in the Wood Memorial (G2). Uncle Heavy finished fifth in the Wood after prevailing two months earlier in the Withers (G3). The Withers and Wood were run over the same course and distance as the Peter Pan, which had a dozen probable entrants listed this weekend by the racing office at Aqueduct. Breeders’ Futurity (G1) runner-up The Wine Steward, who came back from a six-month break to finish second in last month’s Lexington (G3), and maiden winner Tuscan Gold, who was a close third to Catching Freedom in the Louisiana Derby (G2), will merit wagering attention. Brown said Tuscan Gold could be held out for the Preakness, but he also was expected to enter Malarchuk, a Nyquist colt who broke his maiden on third asking with a nine-length victory going a mile April 11 at Aqueduct. That performance earned him an 87 Beyer Speed Figure, according to Daily Racing Form.

Man o’ War (G2), Belmont at Aqueduct, 1 3/8 miles, turf, 4-year-olds and up

Eleven-time winner and three-time Breeders’ Cup starter War Like Goddess has earned more than $2.5 million racing for owner George Krikorian via Hall of Fame trainer Shug McGaughey. She makes her 7-year-old debut trying to do what she did the last two autumns in the Joe Hirsch Turf Classic (G1). That would be to beat the boys. Charlie Appleby, who will have a string of Godolphin horses at Saratoga this summer, may bring double-barreled action to this $400,000 race on Aqueduct’s inner turf course. Nations Pride, a 5-year-old entire, has won Grade 1 and Group 1 races in Canada and Germany as well as in the 2022 Saratoga Derby Invitational. Bold Act, a 4-year-old gelding, came back from winning the Dubai City of Gold (G2) to finish third in the Elkhorn (G2) at Keeneland.

Runhappy (G2), Belmont at Aqueduct, six furlongs, 4-year-olds and up

So far only four sprinters were identified as probable for this race that began as the Diablo before Jim McIngvale, also known as Mattress Mack, bought the naming rights four years ago. Straight No Chaser, a 5-year-old entire, has not raced since his 7 1/2-length victory 11 1/2 months ago in the Maryland Sprint (G3). Joey Freshwater, who enjoyed his only graded-stakes success last spring in the Bayshore (G3), would make his 10th start in the past year.

Sunday

Soaring Softly (G3), Belmont at Aqueduct, six furlongs, turf, 3-year-old fillies

Amidst Waves, who finished 10th of 12 in the 2023 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint, makes her 2024 debut and tries to return to the form she displayed when she won her first three turf starts and lost by just a nose in her fourth. The Midshipman filly had stakes victories last year at Monmouth Park and Saratoga for trainer George Weaver. Among her four would-be rivals is Pipsy, a daughter of Kodiac who won 2 of 3 as a 2-year-old racing in her native Ireland for trainer Ger Lyons. After breaking her maiden on the Curragh turf and getting a stakes win on the Dundalk synthetic, she returns to the grass in her U.S. debut for trainer Will Walden.