Pumpkin Pie Preview: Alisio Could Excel If Conditions Are Wet

ELMONT, NY – With a strong resume in wet conditions, Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott’s Alisio could excel if Sunday’s forecasted rain dampens Belmont Park’s dirt course in time for the $80,000 Pumpkin Pie Stakes.

The Pumpkin Pie is a 7-furlong sprint restricted to fillies and mares ages 3 and up. This year’s edition is the 7th event on a 9-race card and has a local post time of 3:25 PM.

Here’s a look at the full field for the Pumpkin Pie:

1. Bronx Beauty 4/1 – The 5-year-old Pennsylvania-bred could be slowly returning to her top form last year, when she won 3 of her 8 career stakes, each at a different track. She was an easy winner of the Regret Stakes in September, then finished second by 3/4 of a length in the Skipat Stakes last time out, earning 82 and 83 Beyer Speed Figures respectively.

2. Pacific Gale 8/1 – The 5-year-old Flat Out mare reappears still seeking her first victory since a 6-furlong sprint over this course on October 4, 2018. She hit the board in several graded stakes last year but was beaten by over 10 lengths in both the Honorable Miss Handicap (G2) and the Gallant Bloom Handicap (G2); both races were won by Breeders’ Cup contenders.

3. Alisio 5/2 – She makes her stakes debut in her first start of 2020 and with Mott, who took over duties of the Godolphin homebred when Kiaran McLaughlin retired. A daughter of Ghostzapper, she’s bred to love wet dirt and has the record to back it up: she has a 3-2-1-0 record in such conditions, including a 13 1/4-length sloppy romp last time out this past December.

Watch the latest The Magic Mike Show episode covering Sunday’s Belmont Late Pick 4, including this race!

4. Honor Way 3/1 – She has hit the board in 7 of her 8 starts this year, including 2 victories in 6 1/2 furlong sprints here and at Saratoga. She reunites with Jose Ortiz – aboard for both of those scores – and will try to avenge her well-beaten sixth-place finish in last year’s edition when it was held at Aqueduct.

5. Gotham Gala 9/2 – She nearly won her second career stakes in the off-turn Eatontown Stakes, a 1 1/16-mile route on a sloppy Monmouth Park course. The winner of that race, Valiance, won the Spinster Stakes (G1) next time out to earn her place in the Breeders’ Cup Longines Distaff (G1); she has strong back class and should like wet conditions on the cut-back.

6. Never Enough Time 3/1 – She enters on a 2-race win streak, both 6-furlong sprint stakes on different courses: the Alma North at Laurel Park and the Skipat at Pimlico. She has been on the front end after the first 1/2-mile in 7 of her 8 career dirt starts and picks up strong gate rider Luis Saez for her debut on the NYRA circuit.

See the day’s full plays from Ricky’s Rockets!