Arnold makes last-minute race switch for Red Carpet Ready
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ELMONT, N.Y. – Switching the remainder of the Churchill Downs meet to Ellis Park had a trickle-down effect on the stakes action this weekend at Belmont Park after trainer Rusty Arnold made a last-minute decision to supplement and run Red Carpet Ready in Thursday’s $150,000 Jersey Girl Stakes. The presence of Red Carpet Ready in the six-furlong Jersey Girl, off her game victory over odds-on Munnys Gold five weeks earlier in the Grade 2 Eight Belles, bolsters a lineup that also includes Grade 1 winner Chocolate Gelato and the lightly raced but up-and-coming Aunt Becca.
Arnold had planned on running Red Carpet Ready this Sunday in the Leslie’s Lady Stakes at Churchill Downs, a track over which she has been perfect in three starts. But with that race now moved to Ellis Park, Arnold opted to enter Red Carpet Ready in the Jersey Girl to give him a second option. It was one he ultimately chose after assessing the competition and weighing all the pluses and minuses of sending his speedy 3-year-old filly to New York rather than keeping the Keeneland-based Red Carpet Ready in Kentucky for her next start.
“Obviously, we got thrown a curve ball when Churchill suddenly moved the meet to Ellis,” Arnold said several hours before putting Red Carpet Ready on a van to Belmont on Monday afternoon. “It looked like it was a perfect spot for her this weekend in Kentucky, especially since she is unbeaten at Churchill Downs. At that point, it became a coin toss and at least this way we knew who we would be in with and that the weather forecast is a good one for race day.”
Red Carpet Ready engaged the pacesetting and previously untested Munnys Gold midway on the turn in the Eight Belles, edged clear settling into the stretch, and then narrowly withstood a final surge by the heavy favorite at the end. The victory was her fourth in five starts, the lone setback coming two months earlier at Gulfstream Park going a mile in the Grade 2 Davona Dale, where she set a contested pace and raced down on a dead rail before shortening stride to finish a disappointing third as the even-money favorite.
Red Carpet Ready will break from post 1 in the Jersey Girl with regular rider Luis Saez aboard.
“Nobody wants the rail, although it’s not a real concern,” Arnold said. “She’s going into the race the way we wanted, and this will give us the opportunity to try her over a different track before getting her to Saratoga this summer.”
Chocolate Gelato won the Grade 1 Frizette over a sloppy track last fall at Aqueduct but beat only one horse after prompting the pace for six furlongs making her 2-year-old finale in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies.
“She had a couple of little issues after the Breeders’ Cup, so we gave her some time off, tried to put a little weight on her,” said trainer Todd Pletcher who is hoping Chocolate Gelato can avenge stablemate Munnys Gold’s setback in the Eight Belles. Red Carpet Ready “is a quality filly, so obviously it’s going to make the race a lot tougher with her running . She beat us fair and square with Munnys Gold. Chocolate Gelato is training well right now, and we’re looking forward to getting her started, but it’s a real tough spot for sure.”
Irad Ortiz Jr. will again take his regular seat aboard Chocolate Gelato who, like Red Carpet Ready, will share high weight of 122 pounds under the allowance conditions of the race.
Aunt Becca has won 2 of 3 starts, her last try far and away her best yet when switched to dirt for the first time to record a one-sided, 6 1/4-length entry-level allowance win on April 22 at Keeneland for which she earned a career-best 87 Beyer Speed Figure. She figures to be part of what could become be a potentially contested early pace in the Jersey Girl with Joel Rosario taking the call on Aunt Becca from trainer Cherie DeVaux.
L Street Lady, an even-running third three weeks earlier in the Grade 3 Miss Preakness, Wildhawk, Girl Trouble, and Unified Alliance complete the lineup.
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