Dominguez, Pletcher take top honors again at Aqueduct’s
inner track meet
Ramon Dominguez and Todd Pletcher repeated as the respective leading jockey
and trainer for Aqueduct’s inner track meet, with Mike Repole’s Repole Stable
and Carl Lizza’s Flying Zee Stables dead-heating as the meet’s top owners.
It was the fourth straight inner track crown for Dominguez, who won 112
races. Named the 2010 Eclipse Award winner for outstanding jockey, Dominguez has
now captured 13 NYRA meet titles, including 12 of the last 13.
David Cohen closed out the meet in strong fashion, winning nine races over
the final three days and 82 races overall to be runner-up for the second
straight year, with Cornelio Velasquez coming in third with 58 triumphs.
Pletcher, who received his fifth outstanding trainer trophy at the 2010
Eclipse Awards, won 37 races, en route to garnering his 24th NYRA meet title.
“It’s a great accomplishment and it shows what a great job (assistant)
Jonathan (Thomas) and the whole staff has done,” Pletcher. “The other important
thing is how we have an owner who wants to emphasize racing in New York
year-round. Mike (Repole) has given us a lot of quality starts in the
wintertime.”
Rudy Rodriguez was second with 31 victories, with third-place trainer Bruce
Brown taking 27 races.
In the owners’ race, Repole Stable maintained a 15-14 advantage following
Overcommunication’s (Unbridled’s Song) victory in Saturday’s 8TH race before
Smooth Transition (Giant’s Causeway) scored the equalizer for Flying Zee Stables
in Sunday’s opening event.
Dominguez, Pletcher, and Repole teamed up to win three of the meet’s four
graded stakes, annexing the Toboggan S. (G3) and Tom Fool H. (G3) with
Calibrachoa (Southern Image) and the Gotham S. (G3) with Stay Thirsty (Bernardini).
The racing action shifts to the main track at Aqueduct on Wednesday.