Duggan carries momentum into pair of allowance races
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Trainer David Duggan has won with three of his last five starters – not bad for a trainer with only seven horses in his shedrow. The Irish-born conditioner looks to keep the good times rolling Friday at Aqueduct with two runners on the 10-race card, which begins at 1:20 p.m.
In race 7, a first-level allowance for New York-bred 3-year-old fillies going six furlongs, Duggan will send out Leeloo in a field of seven. On Dec. 11, Leeloo was a 7 1/4-length winner of a maiden race. That effort, over a sloppy track, made her the favorite in the Franklin Square Stakes on Jan. 22. She finished fifth, 17 1/4 lengths behind winner Sterling Silver without an apparent excuse.
“Draw a line completely through the last out,” Duggan said. “We have no reason why she ran the way she did. Came back and she trained well.”
On paper, Leeloo shows one good race on an off track and two poor races on fast tracks.
“I never thought it would be a question mark at all,” Duggan said. “She always worked well on good or bad tracks. She doesn’t act like anything but a dirt horse.”
Leeloo will get Lasix for the first time on Friday and is drawn nicely on the outside.
Ready A. P. returns to the races in this spot for trainer Christophe Clement. Ready A. P., a daughter of More Than Ready out of the A.P. Indy mare Girlaboutown, won her debut last July 1 by 8 1/4 lengths at Belmont. In the four-horse Rick Violette Stakes against males at Saratoga on July 21, Ready A. P. finished second and has not been out since, owing in part to bone remodeling, Clement said.
“I’m a little bit worried about the track at Aqueduct, which has been amazingly slow lately,” Clement said from Florida where the bulk of his horses are based. “If she needs one, she needs one.”
In race 9, a first-level allowance for older New York-bred fillies and mares at six furlongs, Duggan sends out Snicket, a 5-year-old daughter of Lemon Drop Kid who is an uninspiring 1 for 19 with nine seconds in her career. Sent off the 4-5 favorite in this condition on Feb. 11, Snicket stumbled at the break and unseated jockey Dylan Davis.
Duggan noted that Snicket stepped on herself and tore a piece of her foot off, known as a grabbed quarter, but has healed.
“She’s well, she’s happy, she’s training well,” Duggan said.
Trevor McCarthy replaces Dylan Davis on Snicket. Davis took the call on Banker’s Daughter, who is 1 for 15 and returns from a 10-month layoff for trainer Mike Miceli. She has four runner-up finishes from six starts in this condition.
Pretty Clever returns from a November layoff and goes first time out for Jamie Begg, a former assistant to Mark Casse, for whom this filly previous raced. Last Friday, Begg won with Holiday Jazz, who had also previously run for Casse and was returning from a layoff.