AQUEDUCT Lucky Move, Mrs. Orb meet a third time

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – After splitting decisions over the last year, Mrs. Orb and Lucky Move have their rubber match in Sunday’s $100,000 Bay Ridge Stakes for New York-bred fillies and mares at Aqueduct.

In last year’s Bay Ridge, Mrs. Orb came out on the right side of a bob, beating Lucky Move by a nose in a race where Lucky Move was in front a jump before and a jump past the wire. That win capped a 2019 campaign in which Mrs. Orb won 5 of 8 starts, all for trainer Mike Miceli.

This year, Mrs. Orb has finished second in 4 of 5 starts, including a runner-up performance to Lucky Move in the $150,000 Empire Distaff Handicap at Belmont on Oct. 24. Undeterred by that loss, Miceli wheeled her back two weeks later in the Grade 3 Turnback the Alarm Handicap at Aqueduct,

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Race 3 at Aqueduct

where Mrs. Orb finished a solid second to Royal Flag. Mrs. Orb earned a career-best 91 Beyer Speed Figure for that effort on Nov. 7. Miceli doesn’t see any regression in Mrs. Orb’s training.

“She’s doing well coming into this race,” Miceli said. “She breezed last week and she breezed nicely. I’m looking forward to her running a good race. She’s not telling me anything different.”

There wasn’t much pace in last year’s Bay Ridge, and this edition looks lacking in that department as well.

“The later a jock can wait on horses like that, the better off you are as long as you got a target that keeps their interest,” Miceli said.

After missing the Turnback the Alarm because he was at the Breeders’ Cup, Dylan Davis is back aboard Mrs. Orb, who breaks from post 6. Davis was aboard for all of Mrs. Orb’s victories last year.

Like Mrs. Orb, Lucky Move does her best running from off the pace. She took advantage of a hot pace to win the Empire Distaff, a one-turn, 1 1/16-mile race on Oct. 24.

Owner Marshall Gramm, of Ten Strike Racing, said he and trainer Juan Carlos Guerrero weren’t even planning to run Lucky Move in that race until they were notified how light the race seemed to be coming up.

“I thought it might be a bit too short for her,” Gramm said. “We were waiting for a twoturn race. We thought about the

Turnback the Alarm, but we were waiting for an [allowance] at Parx” for a confidence boost, Gramm said.

Gramm likes that Lucky Move has had seven weeks between starts while Mrs. Orb had a race in between.

“She’s ready to fire a big shot,” Gramm said.

Kendrick Carmouche rides Lucky Move, the 125-pound highweight, from the rail.

Singular Sensation has run two of her better races going 1 1/8 miles around two turns and could play out as the primary speed under Manny Franco for Mark Hennig. Kilkea, also trained by Hennig, goes turf to dirt. Firenze Freedom and Sky Kitten complete the field.

With only six runners in the field, the Bay Ridge has been carded as the third race on a nine-race card that begins at 12:20 p.m.