Consumer Spending tops field of seven for Thursday's Wonder Again Stakes
ELMONT, N.Y. - Consumer Spending will look to build off her solid victory in the Memories of Silver Stakes in April at Aqueduct when she heads a field of seven 3-year-olds entered Saturday for Thursday’s Grade 3, $200,000 Wonder Again Stakes at Belmont Park.
The Wonder Again, scheduled for 1 1/8 miles on turf, is one of three stakes carded for a nine-race program that kicks off the three-day Belmont Stakes Racing Festival, in which 17 stakes are scheduled over three days culminating with the $1.5 million Belmont Stakes on July 11.
Consumer Spending went 2 for 4 as a 2-year-old with a victory in the Selima Stakes at Laurel Park. She concluded her juvenile season with a sixth-place finish, only 1 3/4 lengths behind Pizza Bianca in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf at Del Mar. Consumer Spending turned the tables on Pizza Bianca, beating her by three-quarters of a length in the Memories of Silver. Pizza Bianca came out of that race to win the Hilltop Stakes at Pimlico on May 20.
Vergara, third to Pizza Bianca in the Hilltop, is entered in the Wonder Again. She won her maiden going 1 1/8 miles at Laurel last October and then came back to win the Tepin Stakes at Aqueduct going 1 1/16 miles in November.
Skims, an allowance winner at Tampa in February comes off a third-place finish behind the undefeated Spendarella in the Grade 2 Appalachian Stakes at Keeneland in April.
Trainer Christophe Clement entered Shad Nation and Tap the Faith, the latter as a main-track-only entrant. Shad Nation, a sharp debut winner here last October, is winless in three starts since.
Sweet Sensation, winner of a maiden $32,000 claiming race on dirt at Tampa Bay Downs, completes the field.
There are a pair of stakes for 2-year-olds on Thursday’s card. The $150,000 Tremont, for 2-year-old males, drew a field of eight maiden winners from eight different tracks - Belmont, Churchill Downs, Evangeline Downs, Gulfstream Park, Keeneland, Laurel Park, Parx Racing and Woodbine.
Zelenskyy Strong, a 4 1/2-length winner of a 4 1/2-furlong maiden race at Gulfstream, Two of a Kind, a 3 3/4-length debut winner at Churchill for Brian Lynch, and No Nay Hudson, a four-length winner of a 4 1/2-length maiden winner at Keeneland, are likely to vie for favoritism.
In the $150,000 Astoria for 2-year-old fillies, Devious Dame, a 5 1/2-length maiden winner at Churchill Downs, and Girl Bye, a 6 1/2-length debut winner at Gulfstream, look the ones to beat in a field of six that includes three winners and three maidens.