Aqueduct: Ria Antonia breezes before heading to Fair Grounds for Risen Star

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Ria Antonia, winner via disqualification of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies in November, took the first significant step toward her 3-year-old debut by breezing three furlongs Sunday morning in 36.62 seconds over the Belmont Park training track.

It was her first timed workout since the Nov. 2 Breeders’ Cup, a race in which she finished second by a nose but was elevated to first by the stewards, who felt she was interfered with in deep stretch by She’s a Tiger.

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Ria Antonia’s owners, Ron Paolucci and Christopher Dunn, believe their filly is on par with the 3-year-old males, a theory they plan to put to the test in the Grade 2, $400,000 Risen Star Stakes at Fair Grounds on Feb. 22. Their goal is to get Ria Antonia to the Kentucky Derby.

Ria Antonia is scheduled to leave Belmont by van Tuesday for the Fair Grounds to continue her preparation.

Elizabeth Dobles, the assistant to trainer Jeremiah Englehart and exercise rider of Ria Antonia, said she was hoping the filly would have gone a little slower in her first breeze back, but was not surprised with her eagerness to work. Ria Antonia went her first eighth in 12.28 seconds, came home though the stretch in 24.34, and galloped out a half-mile in 50.59 seconds.

“She’s been really strong in the mornings, really eager to go,” said Dobles, who will travel with Ria Antonia on Tuesday. “I was hoping she wouldn’t go that fast but I kind of expected it the way she’s been training.”

Sweet Reason also works

Fifty minutes after Ria Antonia worked, Sweet Reason the Grade 1 Spinaway winner who finished fourth as the favorite in the Juvenile Fillies, put in her first work in two months, going three furlongs in 38.79 seconds over the training track.

With exercise rider Jorge Sanchez aboard, Sweet Reason went her first eighth in 12.83 seconds and finished her final quarter in 25.96.

“It was a good work. I didn’t really want her to do too much first time back,” said trainer Leah Gyarmati. “It’s not like she two-minute licks around there galloping every day so I didn’t want to do anything too drastic.”

The $100,000 Busher Stakes on Feb. 1 is the next stakes race for 3-year-old fillies on this circuit, but Gyarmati said she wasn’t sure Sweet Reason would be ready by then.

“I don’t know that we’ll make it,” she said. “We’ll try. I’m not going to push it. I’ll let her tell me, but that’s kind of quick.”

Sweet Reason went 2 for 4 as a 2-year-old winning her first two starts and finishing a troubled second in the Grade 1 Spinaway before her fourth in the Juvenile Fillies.