In his first race in nearly seven months, Deterministic overcame a difficult one-turn mile challenge on a sloppy track on a rain-swept afternoon at Aqueduct to win the $300,000 Grade 3 Gotham Stakes.
Track owner 1/ST will increase the purse of this year’s Preakness Stakes to $2 million and offer a $25 million racing and incentive series connecting a trio of Grade 1 races: this year’s Preakness and California Crown (formerly the Awesome Again Stakes), as well as the 2025 Pegasus World Cup Invitational Stakes.
The Gotham Stakes may not be an ideal Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve prep race. It is, after all, contested at a one-turn mile in early March. Yet it terms of betting value, it’s hard to top the $300,000 Gotham Saturday at Aqueduct.
For the eighth year in a row, America’s Best Racing is challenging some of the brightest minds in horse betting to come up with their top three picks for key races every weekend leading up to the 2024 Triple Crown and then continuing through the 2024 Breeders’ Cup World Championships. The handicappers face off in what we like to call the “Big-Race Showdown.”
Only five horses have entered Sunday’s $400,000, Grade 2 DK Horse San Felipe Stakes at Santa Anita Park. The 1 1/16-mile contest is one of four Road to the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve qualifiers taking place this weekend.
