Wood Memorial Stakes Handicapping Picks
Horse racing gamblers are you looking for 2026 Wood Memorial Stakes Free Pick & Handicapping Odds…plus some predictions? Need some advice on who to take? The 2026 (G2) Wood Memorial is set for April 4 at Aqueduct Race Track in Queens, NY. Here’s a preview of our top contenders.
Wood Memorial Stakes Preview
- Race: Wood Memorial
- Purse: $750,000
- Distance: 1 1/8 miles
- Track: Aqueduct Race Track
- Date: April 4, 2026
- Post Time: 6:34 ET
- Live: Wood Memorial Odds: Click Here
Before we can give you our expert 2026 Wood Memorial Stakes free pick, we have to break down the entries! In fact, we’d love to hear from you after you’ve given this post a read to see if you see an angle that we don’t!
Past 10 Wood Memorial Stakes Winners
- 2025 – Rodriguez
- 2024 – Resilience
- 2023 – Lord Miles
- 2022 – Mo Donegal
- 2021 – Burbonic
- 2020 – no race
- 2019 – Tacitus
- 2018 – Vino Rosso
- 2017 – Irish War Cry
- 2016 – Outwork
2026 Wood Memorial Stakes Handicapping
One of three Kentucky Derby qualifying races on tap in the US this Saturday, the Wood Memorial awards Derby points on a 100-50-25-15-10 scale.
Although no winner of the Wood has gone on to win the Kentucky Derby since 2000, several recent winners have shown up elsewhere on the Triple Crown trail. The 2022 winner, Mo Donegal, would finish fifth in the Derby but five weeks later capture the Belmont Stakes.
Tacitus won the 2019 Wood and placed third in the Derby and second in the Belmont. Irish War Cry won the 2017 Wood and also finished second in the Belmont.
Without a doubt the most famous non-winner of the Wood was the great Secretariat, who ran third in the Wood, and then went on to win the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes in record-setting fashion to capture the 1973 Triple Crown.
With one scratch, this year’s Wood Memorial is expected to draw a field of 12. They’ll race 1 1/8 miles on the Aqueduct dirt track.
Odds listed here are provided by the Aqueduct track oddsmaker.
2026 Wood Memorial Stakes Free Pick & Handicapping: Iron Honor Race Odds: 5-2
Lightly raced Iron Iron makes just his third career start after winning his first two with nearly identical pace-stalking trips.
Both of his races have been on this Aqueduct track. He broke his maiden in mid-December going six furlongs, and then moved up to graded-stakes, taking the one-mile (G3) Gotham Stakes by a length. Now he stretches out in distance from a tough outside post.
2026 Wood Memorial Stakes Free Pick & Handicapping: Napoleon Solo Race Odds: 7-2
Napoleon Solo was an easy winner of his first two lifetime starts, taking his career bow at Aqueduct by 5 1/4 lengths and then graduating to Grade 1 company to win the Champagne Stakes at Saratoga by 6 1/2.
After that he was off for almost five months, showing up in the (G2) Fountain of Youth at Gulfstream where he had a bit of an awkward start and finished a never-threatening fifth.
He catches a somewhat easier field here, and has been putting in a string of solid works leading up to this.
Talk To Me Jimmy Race Odds: 6-1
One of only two horses in the race with a win at the distance, Talk To Me Jimmy accomplished that feat last out in winning the Withers Stakes going wire-to-wire back on early February.
The split times throughout that race were fairly slow, with each quarter-mile slower than the one before. In winning by 11 lengths, Talk To Me Jimmy ran the last 1/8 mile in a glacial 13.80, raising some questions about the overall quality of the field.
Bravaro Race Odds: 8-1
Bravaro comes to New York after knocking heads with the big boys down in the Florida preps, where he finished second in the (G3) Holy Bull Stakes and fourth in the (G2) Fountain Of Youth.
In the latter he took a bump at the start and had to be steadied early in the race and never was able to make himself a factor, finishing just ahead of Napoleon Solo who he’ll meet again here. The winner of the FOY came back last week to win the Florida Derby.
Here’s My 2026 Wood Memorial Stakes Free Pick
If you look hard enough, often races will throw up an interesting handicapping angle, and for the Wood it’s that in the last 16 versions of the race only four winners had won their previous race . The most recent of those was Tacitus in 2019.
While it’s not something to bet the mortgage on, it does bode well for Napoleon Solo who was a very dull fifth last out after a pair of races in 2025 that had him looking like a future star. I’m willing to accept that he needed that race after a long layoff, and with a string of recent impressive works I think he’ll show enough improvement to get the win here.
There’s something to be said for the class relief Bravaro gets in this race from his last two and I think he can outrun his ML odds. I’ll use him in my exacta.
Full Field: 2026 Wood Memorial Stakes Odds
By post position
- #1 – Napoleon Solo 7-2
- #2 – Talk To Me Jimmy 6-1
- #3 – Right To Party 20-1
- #4 – Steel 12-1
- #5 – Ocelli 20-1
- #6 – Minorinconvenience 30-1
- #7 – Albus 12-1
- #8 – Courting 8-1
- #9 – Bravaro 8-1
- #10 – Red Zone Runner 30-1
- #11 – Ottinho (scratched)
- #12 – Buetane 8-1
- #13 – Iron Honor 5-2
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