Go For Wand Stakes
"Weigh the Risks"
Saturday’s card at Aqueduct survived the weather in New York and the Chad Brown trained Weigh the Risks took full advantage to run out a 9 length winner of the feature race on the card. This was the 5th win in her last 6 starts for Chad Brown’s 4-year-old filly, who made light work of this field around the turn before stretching further clear in the home stretch. The fastest into stride, she reached the opening furlong pole in 12.16s (ranked 1st) after a sharp break from stall 3 and once in front, she was able to control the tempo. A finishing speed of 96.3% might suggest that this wasn’t an extreme test of stamina but given the small field and the tight track conditions, that is not entirely surprising. Weigh the Risks was in front at the 2nd furlong pole and there she remained, recording a top speed of 41.45 mph, fully 0.98 mph better than the next best figure in the field (Stonewall Star 40.47 mph).
Manny Franco allowed Weight the Risks to drop the pace as they left the back straight, but she quickened readily when asked to, reaching her race peak average stride length (7.67 m) in the 4th furlong before quickening her stride frequency to pull clear in the straight. She was the fastest horse in each of the final 3 furlong splits, recording a race best late speed figure of 35.32 mph as she asserted in the final quarter of a mile. It’s important to recognise that this wasn’t the deepest contest and Weigh the Risks had already beaten both Scalable (2nd) and Zadorsky (4th) this season. However, she finished just 0.29s ahead of Scalable in the Pumpkin Pie Stakes over the 7 furlong trip at Aqueduct in November and she was able to stretch that winning margin to 1.98s on Saturday despite having to make all of the running. A case can perhaps be made that Scalable didn’t entirely run her race on Saturday. At 34.43 mph she had the best run-out speed in the field in the Pumpkin Pie Stakes whereas the mile trip appeared to stretch her here as her rival pulled away in the straight. She won the G3 Monmouth Oaks in July 2024, so she has been proven over the trip before and so it seems unlikely to be simply a case of her stamina not holding together. Her average stride length was considerably shorter than on her previous start and so if we take the assumption that she has run below her best, it does add some context to the performance of Weigh the Risks.
Chad Brown’s charge has an exceptionally good record at Aqueduct and she has had a highly productive campaign in 2025. An SP of 1.44 suggested that she was likely to dominate this field and once she began to assert in the straight, she was no match for her main market rivals. Stonewall Star was ranked 2nd in the morning line prices, but for the 2nd year in a row she trailed home in last place in this race and despite running the fastest 4th and 5th furlongs, she was quickly beaten. There’s a lot to like about Weigh the Risks and she is more than capable of being competitive at a similar level in 2026, but there is a need to treat the strength of this form and in particular the winning margin with some caution given what the data tells us about the remainder of the field.