All winter we’ve had to watch cheap platers lunge around the inner track out at Aqueduct. Things have been improving, though, and Saturday it all kicks into high gear with the first two Grade I races of the New York racing season: the Carter Handicap and the Wood Memorial.

Aqueduct ran its first meet in Ozone Park, Queens, in 1894, and featured a boardwalk instead of a lawn. It was an outlaw track, unrecognized by the Jockey Club. The following year, however, it earned the blessing of racing’s governing body, and of William Carter, a tugboat skipper, who put up the money to endow the track’s first major stakes race.

Saturday, some excellent older sprinters will be headed to the post for the 105th running of the Carter Handicap, a 7-furlong dash in which Medallist returns to Aqueduct to take on Badge of Silver, Forest Danger, and others.

Great racing appears earlier on the card, as well, as Lost in the Fog – one of the most consistent, professional, and impressive 3-year-olds running – will go in the Grade III Bay Shore. Trainer Greg Gilchrist took Lost in the Fog off of the Kentucky Derby trail because he doesn’t think the horse will want the distance that early in the year. That does not diminish the horse’s talents.

The biggest race of the day is New York’s only major Kentucky Derby Prep, the Wood Memorial.

George Steinbrenner-owned Bellamy Road was established as the favorite off a 15 3/4-length victory in a Gulfstream Allowance on March 12. Certainly, he took that race like it was nothing. The switch to Nick Zito’s barn from Michael Dickinson’s seems to have done him good. But there’s a lot of horse in this race.

Scrappy T goes from the first slot. He can be zippy. He won the Count Fleet wire to wire over the inner track at Aqueduct on January 15. Meanwhile, the first five finishers in the Gotham Stakes of March 19 – Survivalist, Galloping Grocer, Naughty New Yorker, Pavo, and Byanosejoe – are all back to try it again.

The second favorite is D. Wayne Lukas-trained Going Wild. Lukas shipped his two Derby contenders, Going Wild and Consolidator, from California last week and began training them at Churchill Downs. Lukas was quoted in the Daily Racing Form as saying that he was “interested in seeing how [Going Wild] handles new surfaces. I’m interested in seeing how he handles a deeper track. And it’s an easy ship to New York and back.”

I’ve never heard anyone say that shipping thoroughbreds all over the country was easy. Nor have I ever heard a weaker reason for moving a horse from one Grade I stakes race for $750,000 (the Santa Anita Derby, also run tomorrow) to another Grade I stakes race for $750,000.

Going Wild is a lot more horse than his competitors. Although it took him a while to earn a win, he’s never been off the board. After three attempts as a 2-year-old, he finally picked up a win at his first Santa Anita race on December 26th of last year. He went on to win two more, the January 17 San Miguel, and the February 5 Sham. The Sham, like the Wood, is a 9-furlong race, and Going Wild is the only horse in the race with a victory at that distance. Last time out – in the March 5 Santa Catalina at Santa Anita – he lost, very gamely, to Declans Moon, one of the best horses of his generation.

The only question is whether or not Going Wild can run at Aqueduct. I think Lukas’s shipping him all the way across the country indicates that he, at least, believes that the horse can.

Any horse going to the gate in the Wood Memorial is hoping to go to the gate on the first Saturday in May. Bob Baffert once called this time of year “balloon busting” time. These are the races that decide not just who is going to go to the Derby, but also who isn’t. A poor run – especially in a Derby field as crowded and talented as this one – probably means you’re off the Derby trail for good. If I were going to answer the question of which horse is likely to win tomorrow’s race, and therefore which horse is going to go on to race in Kentucky, Going Wild would top the list.

But there are two factors in play at the Wood, and the other is, of course, gambling. If you were instead to ask me which of these horses was the value, I would point you to all the incredible overlays created by those two favorites. Naughty New Yorker is running on Lasix – a diuretic that is supposed to keep horses from bleeding in their lungs – for the first time, and he’s going off at 10-1. Survivalist won the Gotham on March 12th through a traffic jam on the stretch; he’s at 5-1. And Scrappy T is a hefty 15-1 on the inside. There’s a lot on the board to make it a great betting prospect.

Outside of the Wood, the question of who is and who is not going to Kentucky will be answered out west as well. As I wrote earlier this week, Sweet Catomine is facing the boys for the first time in the Santa Anita Derby. There is no telling whether or not a filly can run with the colts, but looking over her past performances, she certainly seems up to the task.