Fire Key seeks third straight win

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – First, it was the rain. Then, the nearrecord cold. Inclement weather has wreaked havoc with the turf racing at Aqueduct this fall, forcing 40 of 63 scheduled turf races to the dirt through the first 16 days of the fall meet.

Sunday’s $125,000 Autumn Days here is the last scheduled turf stakes for the year on this circuit, run one race after the $100,000 Tepin, also scheduled for the grass. As fate would have it, there was more rain forecast for Saturday night.

If it remains on the outer turf, the Autumn Days, at six furlongs, is a good race. Fire Key, who won last year’s Autumn Days, heads a field of 11 entrants for the turf. There are four runners designated as main track only.

Fire Key has made up for a disappointing summer at Saratoga with two stakes wins this fall. She won the Sensible Lady Turf Dash at Laurel on Sept. 22 and came back three weeks later to win the Floral Park at Belmont.

“She’s trained good since her last race and feels good,” said Pat Kelly, who trains Fire Key for Ed McEneaney’s Backwards Stable. “If it’s on the grass, we’ll give it a try.”

Kelly noted that Fire Key was pulling exercise rider Luis Pereira pretty hard during Friday morning’s gallop.

“She’s ready to go,” he said. “She needs to do something.”

Five of the horses Fire Key has beaten in her last two starts are entered in the Autumn Days. Fear No Evil was beaten a head in the Sensible Lady Turf Dash and beaten three-quarters of a length in the Floral Park. Trainer Tom Albertrani said Fear No Evil may have gotten to the lead a little sooner than anticipated in the Sensible Lady, but he added, “Pat’s horse was just closing a little faster.”

Albertrani also entered Always Thinking, who beat Fire Key in the 2017 Sensible Lady Turf Dash but finished fifth behind her in this race last year.

Compelled, trained by Tom Proctor, was beaten a nose by Fire Key in the 2018 Sensible Lady. Aqueduct would be the 10th track Compelled has run at in her 14th career start. Feargal Lynch would become the ninth different jockey to ride her.

Misericordia, fifth in the Sensible Lady, came back to win a second-level allowance at Laurel and is now back in the Autumn Days.

Among the new faces to challenge Fire Key is Broadway Run, who won the Coronation Cup at Saratoga in July and finished second in the Christiecat at Belmont on Sept. 7.

Should the Autumn Days come off the turf, Sounds Delicious, winner of the Correction Stakes here in March, would be well spotted to make her first start since May, when she finished fourth in the Grade 3 Vagrancy Handicap at Belmont.

Yorkiepoo Princess, a stakes winner over the main track as a 2-year-old, Lezendary, and Friend of Liberty are also entered to run only on the main track.