Aqueduct: It’s Tricky headed to Ogden Phipps

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Trainer Kiaran McLaughlin said Moinday that It’s Tricky, winner of Saturday’s Grade 2 Distaff Handicap, will make her next start in the Grade 1 Odgen Phipps at Belmont on May 28.

Though It’s Tricky won the Distaff by 3 1/2 lengths, there were some anxious moments when jockey Eddie Castro resorted to the whip leaving the three-eighths pole. [bc_video_id:249020:]

“There was a tiny moment on the turn you thought, ‘Uh-oh, she’s not going to get there,’ ” McLaughlin said. “It was just for five strides you were a little worried. She showed her class and ended up drawing off to win by three. It was asking her to do something she hadn’t done in a long time – sprint. We made the right decision in staying home.”

While the Phipps is also a one-turn race, it is run at 1 1/16 miles, which should suit It’s Tricky a little better.

The competition figures to get tougher with the likes of Awesome Maria, the defending Phipps winner, likely to run back in that spot.