Aqueduct: Mamdooha by a nose in Ruthless Stakes

Mamdooha already had proven that she was good. On Sunday, she benefitted from being lucky, too.

Mamdooha won Sunday’s $100,000 Ruthless Stakes at Aqueduct by the slimmest of noses, winning a bob at the wire over Parx shipper Vero Amore to record her third consecutive victory and her second straight stakes win.

It was 9 1/4 lengths back to Alpaca Fina in third. Summertime Friend, the 4-5 favorite and uncoupled entrymate of Mamdooha, finished fourth, while longshot Keep in Mind was last.

Mamdooha, who had come from well off the pace in winning her last two starts, was kept a little closer by jockey Eddie Castro on Sunday as Summertime Friend set the pace, stalked by Vero Amore, who was making her first start in two months.

Vero Amore, under Irad Ortiz Jr., took over from Summertime Friend at the five-sixteenths pole, and Castro had Mamdooha perched to her outside. In deep stretch, it looked like Mamdooha was going to edge clear, but Vero Amore would not succumb, and it came down to a nose bob at the finish.

“I thought we lost a close one,” said Art Magnuson, the assistant to Kiaran McLaughlin, the trainer of Mamdooha. “You got to be a little bit lucky, too.”

Mamdooha, a daughter of Daaher owned and bred by Sheikh Hamdan’s Shadwell Stable, covered the six furlongs in 1:12.01 over a track labeled “good” and returned $6.10 as the second choice.

“The last part of the race, I thought I got a little bit ahead,” Castro said. “The other horse [Vero Amore] didn't make it easy for me. They fought hard to the wire. She's a good filly.”

Trainer Butch Reid said Vero Amore hadn’t run since Nov. 1 in large part because of a quarantine at Parx due to concerns over equine herpesvirus at that track. In fact, a ban of Parx shippers by New York Racing Association officials was only lifted Friday.

Reid said he had wanted to run in a few spots before this but couldn’t. Reid also was concerned because his filly had an interrupted training schedule due to inclement weather.

“All things considered, it was a great effort,” Reid said. “The [rail] post position didn’t help us either. If she had an outside post, it could have changed the outcome, too.”

Both Magnuson and Reid said they might want to stretch their fillies out in distance. The $100,000 Busher on Feb. 1 is run at 1 1/16 miles and is the next route race for 3-year-old fillies on this circuit.