Aqueduct Notes

- The Long Island Handicap came up with an international flavor at Aqueduct today, as trainer Andre Fabre ships in a couple of sharp B team type three-year old fillies which comprise the favored 5-2 entry. This could be one of the turf races on next year's unofficial dirt breeders' cup card at Belmont next year; the Euro barns could drop off the horses that don't quite make the cut to continue on to Santa Anita. Both Shake the Moon (Loup Solitaire) and Astrologie are proven at the distance up to listed stakes company. But I'd certainly take a shot against them as the favorite, especially if overbet as entries sometimes are.

Criticism (4-1) stretches out to a mile and a half for Darley and Tom Albertrani in only her second start of the year. She had a handy prep for this, in her first US start, when she rallied wide for a close second to Sunshine for Life (12-1) after that one set an uncontested pace at a mile and a sixteenth in the Athenia. I think the class of her three year old form in France last year is at least at the level of those of the Fabre entry; more really, considering her third against males in a Group 3. And though she's 0 for 2 in two races at the distance which came early in her career, I think she may love it. Criticism is by Machiavellian, out of Innuendo, a multiple stakes winner at a mile and a half, and a half to another in Moon Queen; and her second dam is Infamy, who won the Rothmans International at the distance in 1988. So plenty of stamina in her family.

J'Ray (3-1) gets an excuse in the EP Taylor with its slow pace, but has never won beyond a mile and an eighth. I think she'd be a real underlay at these odds. Doesn't figure to be a quick pace either. The aforementioned Sunshine for Life (Giant's Causeway) should find herself on the lead again, and should be in front as far as she goes in her first try beyond 1 3/16ths.