Aqueduct: Sweet Reason will follow New York path to Kentucky Oaks

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Sweet Reason, winner of the Grade 1 Spinaway and fourth as the favorite in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, is expected to return to trainer Leah Gyarmati’s Belmont Park barn early next week and begin preparation for a 3-year-old campaign.

Unlike Ria Antonia, the Juvenile Fillies winner who is being pointed to the Kentucky Derby and will stable in New Orleans, Sweet Reason’s spring goal is the Kentucky Oaks. She will remain in New York and likely make her 3-year-old debut in the $100,000 Busher Stakes over Aqueduct’s inner track on Feb. 1.

The Grade 2, $300,000 Gazelle Stakes on April 5 over the main track is also a likely target. Princess of Sylmar used those two traces – as well as the Busanda – en route to her upset victory in the Oaks.

“That’s kind of the plan,” Gyarmati said Friday.

Gyarmati said she believes the Busanda Stakes here on Jan. 4 would be too soon for Sweet Reason to run after she spent the last month turned out at Hogan Equine, a farm run by noted equine physician Patty Hogan in Cream Ridge, N.J.

Sweet Reason won her first two starts at Saratoga – including the Spinaway – before finishing a troubled second in the Grade 1 Frizette at Belmont. In the Juvenile Fillies, at Santa Anita, Sweet Reason made a big rally from well off the pace, but couldn’t sustain it to the wire. She was beaten only two lengths.

Gyarmati also said Noble Moon, the third-place finisher in the Nashua who had to scratch from the Remsen on Nov 30, is being pointed to the Grade 2, $200,000 Jerome here on Jan. 4 for his 3-year-old debut. Noble Moon had to scratch from the Remsen after developing hives the night before the race. On Wednesday, Noble Moon worked four furlongs in 50.22 seconds over the Belmont training track.

“That’s what we’re going to do,” Gyarmati said. “There’s a little conversation about [Street Gent] whether we want to run both of them or separate them. It’s a good problem.”

Street Gent won a 1 1/8-mile maiden race over the main track on Dec. 1.

McCarthy going on his own

Michael McCarthy, who has worked as an assistant to five-time Eclipse Award-winning trainer Todd Pletcher for 11 years, is leaving that operation next week and will return to Southern California, where he plans to open a public stable early in 2014.

Byron Hughes, who worked for Pletcher in Kentucky, will oversee Pletcher’s New York string this winter. Pletcher, who has the bulk of his stable in south Florida for the winter, has 40 horses based at Belmont.

One of the primary reasons McCarthy is leaving is to be closer to his wife Erin and their 3-year-old daughter Stella.

“It’s hard to walk away from an organization like this,” McCarthy, 42, said Friday. “Monetary things aside, you get to work with the best-bred horses in the country, top talent, every top professional in their chosen profession whether it be an equine practitioner or a blacksmith.”

McCarthy, who had worked for Pletcher in California, Kentucky, and New York, said he hopes to be stabled at Santa Anita, but it was not yet clear for whom he will be training or how many horses he will have at the outset.

“I don’t know the numbers yet, but I know I will get some support,” McCarthy said. “Some people have expressed an interest.”

La Verdad sold, scratched

The 3-year-old filly La Verdad was scratched out of Friday’s $100,000 Touch of Love Stakes after having been purchased privately by Sheila Rosenblum from Eklektikos Stable. Since the sale was finalized in between the time of entry and race day, the horse could not run under her new owner’s names or run in her silks and therefore was scratched.

As part of a package deal, Rosenblum also bought a yearling half-sister to La Verdad by City Zip.

La Verdad has won her last three races by a combined 21 1/4 lengths. She will remain with trainer Linda Rice.

◗ Though it’s not official, turf racing is basically done for the year in New York. Rain washed Friday’s two scheduled turf races off the grass and with wet weather forecast throughout Friday and into Saturday, it seemed unlikely that Saturday’s one or Sunday’s two turf races would remain on the turf. Sunday was the last scheduled day of turf racing.

◗ John Imbriale began calling the races at Aqueduct on Friday and will do so for the next four months as regular announcer Tom Durkin takes his winter break.