OZONE PARK, N.Y. – The popular Baby Yoda, who went off form late last summer after an eye-catching victory in the Grade 2 True North at Saratoga a year ago, returns to the races Friday in a high-class allowance race that serves as the feature at Aqueduct.
In the multi-conditioned race at 6 1/2 furlongs, Baby Yoda is eligible under the clause for horses who haven’t won $45,000 since Dec. 13, 2024.
The race is slated as the fifth leg of a pick six that has a carryover of $30,569.
Baby Yoda hasn’t run since he finished fifth of seven in the Fall Highweight last Nov. 29 at Aqueduct. That followed double-digit-length defeats in both the Grade 1 Forego and Grade 3 Vosburgh.
“We turned him out over the winter, he wasn’t looking too good,” trainer Bill Mott said. “He came back and he seems like he’s doing okay. You wonder if they’re going to come back to form. His works have been pretty good, he’s worked steady.”
Before he won the True North in June 2024, Baby Yoda won an allowance race at Aqueduct at odds of 17-1. He had lost his nine previous starts.
Flavien Prat, will ride Baby Yoda on Friday, making him the 12th different jockey to climb aboard the now 7-year-old gelding, who has won 9 of 29 starts and banked $886,720.
This is no easy spot for Baby Yoda. Among those who come in with more recency and better form are Twenty Four Mamba and War Stride.
Twenty Four Mamba won a an allowance/optional-claiming race on April 5 and was claimed for $62,500 by Tom Morley for Flying P Stable. In his next start, on May 8, Twenty Four Mamba won a race similar to this going seven furlongs though he was in for the $100,000 claiming price that day.
“I think this is a horse who is rounding back into his very best form,” Morley said. “This is his level. I think he can win at 6 1/2. I think he’s probably better at seven.”
War Stride, a 5-year-old gelding trained by George Weaver, appears to be stepping out of condition for this race, but he is coming off a powerful three-length win at Aqueduct on May 11, for which he earned a career-best 95 Beyer Speed Figure.
New York-bred stakes winners Sheriff Bianco and Light Man are it in this field. The latter is coming off a near seven-month layoff for Bruce Levine.
Repo Rocks, 1 for 14 the last 18 months, and Top Gunner, an allowance winner here in January, complete the field.
Shug upset by distance change
While pleased with the way his horse Integration ran in Sunday’s Grade 1 Manhattan Stakes at Saratoga, where he was second, beaten a head, by Deterministic, trainer Shug McGaughey was upset over the change of distance for the race.
The Manhattan, scheduled for 1 3/16 miles over the Mellon turf course last Saturday, was moved to the inner turf and shortened to 1 1/8 miles on a day’s notice. The change was made due to the 2.24 inches of rain that fell Friday into Saturday prompting New York Racing Association officials to conclude it could only run one race on each turf course over the weekend. The Grade 1 Jaipur needed to be run on the Mellon because that course was the only that could accommodate 5 1/2 furlongs.
“You pay to nominate, you pay to enter, you pay to run, and they run it on a different track, at a different distance, on a different day,” McGaughey said, referring to the $16,000 in fees associated with running in the $1 million Manhattan. “I was very disappointed in the way the whole thing was handled. Unless I got something special, I ain’t going back,” McGaughey added, referring to the 2026 Belmont Stakes Racing Festival, which is expected to be held again in Saratoga. “I know weather got in their way.”
McGaughey said that Integration would be pointed to the Grade 1 Arlington Million on Aug. 9 at Colonial Downs.
Integration won the Grade 3 Virginia Derby at Colonial in 2023 and the Million Preview in 2024 and was second in the 2024 Arlington Million.
Plans for Donegal Momentum
While trainer Tom Morley has the Grade 1 Fourstardave on Aug. 2 as the major summer goal for Donegal Momentum, he could very well run the Grade 3 Poker Stakes winner back in the Grade 3 $175,000 Kelso on July 5.
“He needs to tell me,” Morley said. “As we’ve run him, I’ve realized he’s a horse that needs to stay in a racing pattern, which is why after the Carter I was so keen to get the allowance race into him.”
While Morley stopped short of calling the Poker an easy race for Donegal Momentum, he said, “To me it looked like he was having a tremendous amount of fun. I’m absolutely not ruling out the Kelso. It makes my job of training him an awful lot easier.”
Donegal Momentum earned a career-best 96 Beyer for his 1 3/4-length Poker victory.
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