NY Stallion Series- Thunder Rumble ($125.000 Purse)
AQU- For Three Year Olds and Upward Foaled in NY
Seven Furlongs on the Dirt
November 23, 2024

This weekend is full of State bred stakes throughout the virtual racing world, and AQU is no exception as a pair of NY Stallion Series races will run on Saturday. One of them is the Thunder Rumble, which is a seven-furlong race on the main track. It runs for the 16th time, with past winners being New York Yankees, undoubtedly a popular horse here that day in 2011, as well as Sexy Back in 2021. Whether or not we have a future BC Classic winner in here is to be determined, but for now we can enjoy this field of eleven. In 2023, the race was won by Air Raid, for Iolaus Racing. It would be his last career win, and he has since been retired. Here’s a look at those taking part this year:

1- Fire And Ice (TwinTowersRacing, ridden by F Prat)- The veteran gelding will make his 38th career start, but his six-year-old season has been a quiet one. Started the year off in decent shape and narrowly missed winning the Grade 2 Muniz Memorial Handicap in March. The second half of the year has not been good, and with that the trainer moves him off of the turf to run on the main track for the first time since July 2023. He works very well, but that has never been a problem for him.

2- Honk Honk (D J C Racing Stables, ridden by T McCarthy)- One of those feast or famine horses, as he was won four times in eleven starts, but those are the only times he has hit the board. D J C only needed $3.010 to pick him up in the most recent auction, and the gelding won in the slop last month. Honk Honk has made one graded start before, but this is a vote of confidence in where he has been running recently. Hey, after that last race, why not?

3- Tough Customer (Big Jd Racing, ridden by M Franco)- In late 2022, he was successful in NY-bred stakes, and even won the Sleepy Hollow, but then he went into a pretty deep slump. KYD preps went poorly, and he was mediocre in overnights that immediately followed. He’d be sent to the June 2024 auction and has had a resurgence with Big Jd Racing to this point as the new trainer has cut his distance. Last month, he ran third in the $150.000 Hudson. It’s not often that you see Mb Stables let one get away, but that may be the case right here.

4- Skylight Sword (Onlineracingclub.com, ridden by L Dettori)- The first thing that jumps out at you with him is his pedigree. By State Police and out of Distant Cousin, he seems destined for success. Though he jumped around in claimers for a little while, he’s been good with Onlineracingclub.com, with multiple stakes wins and a competitive performance in the BC Dirt Mile of 2023. Off of that, this year seems a little underwhelming, but he actually only made four starts and hit the board in three of them. Not crazy over his recent work, but historically, they have bounced around a bit.

5- Extreme Flyer (La Canada Racehorses, ridden by D Davis)- Last month, Extreme Flyer won a high-level optional claimer at SA, but he has generally been a stake horse over his career. He was at this best over the late spring, where he ran second in the Grade 2, $600.000 Day Mile Stakes at CD and followed that up by running third in the Grade 3 Winn. But after a poor running in the Dwyer here, the trainer backed off his placement a little bit. Now, the gelding gets a chance to atone himself at AQU for that Dwyer showing.

6- Destined To Be (Riggins Racing, ridden by K Carmouche)- Makes his stake debut after hitting the board in five of his six races to this point. Only one of them is a win, but after a couple of close calls at PRX, he’ll get a chance to run against NY-Breds here. While he does have to prove himself, he should not be out of place. Is it destined to be for Destined To Be? We shall see.

7- Tetris (Ajm Stables, ridden by L J Luzzi)- While he did run in stakes in 2023, Tetris had mostly been running in overnights this year, and the majority of them were on the grass. Things changed for him at the Spa in August, when he was moved to the dirt and won an optional claimer, leading the trainer to take a shot at getting into the BC Sprint in the Grade 2 Phoenix. And Tetris nearly did it, coming agonizingly close in a second-place effort. This will be his first race since then, so more of the same may get it done.

8- Sir Lord Devastator (Onlineracingclub.com, ridden by J Rosario)- Over his 23-race career, Sir Lord Devastator has bounced around between a lot of barns, but has found a home here with Onlineracingclub.com in 2024. With the trainer, most of his races have been running with the NY-bred condition, and the gelding has been productive. After running second in the Hudson last month, losing the head bob at the wire, he hopes to do one better in the Thunder Rumble.

9- Furious Logic (Asgar, ridden by J Alvarado)- We also saw Furious Logic in the Hudson, but the Fire N Fury gelding would only finish fourth of five, despite being beaten just a length. The race was a return for him to the stake level after eleven months of inconsistent performances in overnights. On his best day, he can run with these but cannot have anything less than his best effort. Nice work at WO coming into this.

10- Whiskey Drunk (First Flight Stable, ridden by J R Martinez)- Not a lot going on in the past performances that point to this horse about to grab that win, but both the trainer and I have looked at plenty of horses over the years to know that means nothing. Whiskey Drunk ran third in a $32.000 claimer last month, which was his first race since June. You could go back to find some top races he was in, but I can’t put any weight in them based on recent form. I’d have to be drunk to pick him.

11- Sick Boi (Royalty Stables, ridden by I Ortiz Jr)- Has three wins in seven starts, but did not run well in the other four races. He’s had a couple of tries a graded races already, and good ones to boot: the Peter Pan and the Travers but ran sixth in each. Sixth, though, in the Travers is not a death sentence. His two races surrounding that are wins in overnights, and this is exactly what Sick Boi needs: a stake, but not the Travers. Works are very good, and he is promising in this field.

Prediction: 8-11-3-7

— NS

Categories: STAKES ARTICLES, Ungraded