Bay Ridge Stakes
“Bernietakescharge lives up to her name”
For those of us lucky enough to spend the holidays in New York it’s been a cold one. Friday night’s snowfall has seen the temperatures plummet and this weekend’s meeting at Aqueduct did well to survive the cold weather. Sunday’s card included the feature Bay Ridge Stakes and it certainly helped to thaw the cool conditions as Bernietakescharge and Landed served up a thrilling battle on the front end. A race with a finishing speed below 90% would always point to a strong early pace and that was certainly the case here as the pair took each other on. Both of them reached the first pole in sub 12 seconds and they maintained that pace for the next half a mile, with the eventual winner covering the opening 5 furlongs in just 57.47s (an average of 11.30s per furlong). At that pace, it was no surprise to see the pace slacken in the home stretch, but whilst Landed faded away, Bernietakescharge kept going to record a 7th career success. She has a good record at Aqueduct and despite being exclusively raced in New York, she sets a fair standard overall and gives this form a solid look. Having been picked off by Vatellina in the Empire Distaff Stakes on her latest start in October, a race where she once again got the better of a long battle for the lead, she certainly wasn’t winning this out of turn.
Bernietakescharge did this the hard way. Having been restless and uneasy in the stalls, she raced on the front end throughout and recorded the highest peak average stride frequency figure in the field at 2.53 per second. By the time she reached the final furlong, her stride frequency had dropped to 2.10 per second, a fall of 17% from her race peak figure, but she had enough left in the tank to hold off Cupid’s Heart to win by 0.39s, crossing the line 2 and a quarter lengths in front. To her enormous credit, she recorded a joint best run-out speed of 30.51 mph (equal with Atlantis Queen) and when we consider that she finished over half a second ahead of Landed by the time they crossed the line, this has to be considered to be close to her career best. This is her level. Her last 2 victories came at this stakes level and she has a very good record of 5 wins and 4 placings from 13 starts at the New York track, but to produce a battling performance from the front was not easy in these conditions and she saw things out well. Landed was making her first start since early September and probably paid for a lack of match fitness in the closing stages, but the more “unlucky” loser is perhaps the 2nd placed Cupid’s Dream. Manny Franco looked to be coming with a race winning move around the turn, but as Landed drifted back towards the inside rail, the gap closed and that forced Cupid’s Dream to switch wide. She lost momentum at a crucial time and despite being faster than the winner in 3 of the last 4 furlongs, the need to switch and the time lost in doing so prevented her from having any chance of getting on terms.