Most horseracing fans think of the spring and summer as prime horse racing seasons, but Aqueduct Racetrack in Ozone Park, New York offers exciting thoroughbred racing in the winter with a meet that runs from early November through late April. Aqueduct features a specially designed “winterized” inner track that does not freeze and allows racing to be conducted even in a snowstorm!

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While New York racing is famous for Saratoga and Belmont Park, “The Big A” has been around since 1894 and is the only racetrack in New York City. The track sits on 210 acres in the borough of Queens and is just eight miles from Belmont Park.

Since turf courses are more difficult to maintain in the winter, the winterized inner track replaced the inner turf course at Aqueduct in 1975. In recent years Aqueduct has undergone another significant change. A multi-level, 415,000 square foot casino was added in 2011. Resorts World Casino New York City now occupies the former grandstand of Aqueduct and provides more than 5,000 slot machine games which help to subsidize purses for live racing. Many racing purists have balked at the idea of casino involvement in racing, but in many racing jurisdictions this has become a necessity.

Richard Migliore is the all-time leading jockey at The Big A with 2238 wins. It takes a special kind of jockey to brave the bitter cold. Gasper Moschera is the leading trainer with 925 wins in his career, but that mark may soon falls to the likes of Gary Contessa and Bruce Levine. Both of these trainers are perennial standouts at Aqueduct.

The marquee event at Aqueduct is the Grade 1 Wood Memorial which is a key prep for the Kentucky Derby. It has hosted some of the most legendary horses on their way to the Triple Crown series. Most famously, Secretariat lost the Wood Memorial just a few weeks before winning the Triple Crown. In recent years the winner of the Wood Memorial has not fared all that well in the pursuit of the Kentucky Derby. Toby’s Corner (2011), Eskendereya (2010) and I Want Revenge (2009) were all probable favorites for Kentucky Derby after winning the Wood Memorial but each suffered injuries and never made it to the starting gate in Louisville. The 2012 winner of the Wood Memorial, Gemologist, finished 16th in the Kentucky Derby.

Many historic moments have happened at Aqueduct. The only triple dead heat in stakes history happened at The Big A on June 10, 1944 when Brownie, Bossuet, and Wait a Bit crossed the wire at exactly the same moment. Because of its great history, Aqueduct is sure to remain a favorite spot for those that like to handicap the races in the winter months.

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Graded Stakes at Aqueduct:

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Handicapping Aqueduct: The Inner Track and Winter Patterns

Aqueduct’s winter meet on the inner dirt track creates one of the most distinctive handicapping environments in North American racing. The inner track — a smaller oval used when the main track is unavailable — has historically produced one of the most pronounced front-runner biases in American racing. Horses that can establish or press the lead on the inner track hold on at a significantly higher rate than closers who need to make up ground in the stretch, making pace scenario assessment the single most important variable in winter Aqueduct handicapping.

For bettors who follow New York racing through the winter, understanding the inner track bias and adjusting probability estimates accordingly is the most reliable single improvement available. This does not mean blindly backing every front-runner — it means downgrading closers whose form lines show consistent late runs at other tracks, and upgrading speed horses whose form suggests they can establish position early. The specific bias data from the current inner track meet, updated as races accumulate, provides the most reliable evidence of how strongly the bias is playing in any given year. For more on New York racing, our articles on horse racing tracks in New York and New York horse race track history cover the full New York circuit. And our guide to understanding track bias in horse racing covers the methodology for exploiting bias patterns systematically.