Another good spot for Quiet Giant in Lady on the Run

OZONE PARK, N.Y. − Quiet Giant lived up to her 1-2 odds when she overpowered her five rivals in winning the $60,000 Cheap Seats Stakes by 8 3/4 lengths going a mile over Aqueduct’s inner track last month.

The competition gets only slightly tougher Sunday, when Quiet Giant meets four opponents in the $60,000 Lady on the Run Stakes, also scheduled for one mile over the inner track. The Lady on the Run takes the place of the $65,000 Affectionately Stakes, a 1 1/16-mile race for fillies and mares that did not attract enough entries to be carded.

Quiet Giant, a daughter of Giant’s Causeway bred by the late Edward P. Evans, is 3 for 4 around two turns on dirt, with those wins coming at a mile or a mile and 70 yards. She does her best running when she is put into the race. John Velazquez did this with her in the Cheap Seats, in which she raced within a length of the lead until the field turned for home and then drew off convincingly.

Sunday, Ramon Dominguez will ride Quiet Giant, who figures to stalk either her uncoupled stablemate McVictory or Wind Caper. Dominguez has won 13 races from his last 29 mounts at Aqueduct.

“Ramon could do whatever he wants to do with her,” said Jonathan Thomas, assistant to trainer Todd Pletcher. “All you need to do with Ramon right now is make sure he gets on top of the horse.”

McVictory who will break from post 3 under David Cohen, is winless in six starts since coming to Pletcher’s barn, but she has faced some top quality competition including Rightly So, Just Jenda and Nicole H.

“The way she trains you’d think it’s just a matter of time before she wins a stakes race,” Thomas said.

Wind Caper coughed up an eight-length lead when she faded to third in the Sky Beauty Stakes here Dec. 16. She chased some pretty hot early fractions, much to the dismay of trainer Mike Hushion.

“I don’t know what made her run off with him like that,” Hushion said. “Terrible half-mile fraction that day. She’s settled much better whether it was from in front or behind.”

Junior Alvarado replaces Alex Solis in the irons on Wind Caper.

Indian Burn and Mined Over Matter, third and fifth behind Quiet Giant in the Cheap Seats, complete the lineup.