Think twice before accepting low odds

The Friday feature at Aqueduct comes early on the card, but you could easily stay up late Thursday night trying to suss out a strong opinion.

Race 2 is carded for fillies and mares at one mile on turf and is open to second-level allowance horses or $62,500 claimers. You could take the easy way out and lean on the Chad Browntrained likely favorite Reversethedecision, who is 2-1 on the morning line and makes sense as a win contender. Sorrentina Lemon is listed as the 5-2 co-second choice along with War Canoe and both horses, though coming from entirely different places, make sense in this spot. But this is one of those races that becomes denser and murkier the longer you study.

Start with an unclear pace scenario. On paper, Passing Out and Arabella Bella look the likeliest to lead. Arabella Bella hasn’t started since the Kentucky Downs meeting in early September, when she finished a troubled third in a sprint race Sept. 5, and returned just three days later to lead from start to finish in a onemile $25,000 starter-allowance. Arabella Bella’s most recent published work came Oct. 28 at the Churchill Downs training center, but trainer Mike Maker said in a text message Wednesday she’s on track to race Friday. Even if Arabella Bella makes the front, she might not be quite good enough to take full advantage of a pace edge.

Passing Out might be fast enough to get to the front but it’s highly unlikely her connections want her there. In her most recent start, the Sept. 14 Pebbles Stakes, Passing Out was caught three wide without cover in the early stages and jockey Jose Lezcano couldn’t hold her, eventually deciding not to fight and giving Passing Out her head as she dashed, headstrong, into quick splits.

Jose Ortiz regains the mount Friday and was aboard Aug. 9 at Saratoga, where Passing Out, if anything, had too much cover, buried in a forest of horses until suddenly finding room past the eighth pole. She earned only a 77 Beyer Speed Figure for that first-level allowance win but ran much better than the number and should be a playable price Friday.

As for Reversethedecision, she ended her 3-year-old campaign in 2018 with a solid if unspectacular fourth-place finish in the Grade 3 Valley View at Keeneland. She didn’t race again until Sept. 22 at Belmont, where she was second in a 1 1/16-mile race at this class level. Reversethedecision finished solidly in that race, which was won by slow pacesetting Sweet Bye and Bye, who would return to finish second in the Grade 3 Athenia Stakes.

Sorrentina Lemon, a 3-yearold like Passing Out, has started her career with a debut win at Tampa in January and a first-level allowance score Sept. 19 at Belmont.

War Canoe’s 90 and 89 Beyers from her last two starts point her out as a strong contender and while she drops in class from New York-bred stakes, the 6-year-old mare is entered for a claiming price $22,500 more than her present connections paid Aug. 28.