Funny How gets back to work, targets Distaff Handicap
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – While he will still be well represented in Sunday’s $100,000 Biogio’s Rose with Timeless Journey, trainer Ray Handal’s best New York-bred female dirt horse, Funny How, has a bigger prize in her sights – the Grade 3, $150,000 Distaff Handicap on April 7 at Aqueduct.
Funny How, dominant winner of the Broadway Stakes here Feb. 12, returned to the work tab Friday for the first time since that win, breezing four furlongs in 48.18 seconds over the Belmont Park training track. Working in company inside of the 4-year-old filly Fromanothamutha, Funny How went in relatively even splits of 24.00 seconds and 24.18.
Handal said that he gave Funny How an extra week following her last race before breezing her in part because she developed a little cellulitis, or tissue inflammation, in a hind leg.
“We treated her with antibiotics and she’s fine,” Handal said.
Funny How has reeled off five consecutive victories, capped by her 4 1/4-length victory in the Broadway, which was run at seven furlongs. Handal said he wouldn’t have been afraid to run Funny How a mile in the Biogio’s Rose, but said she deserved a shot in a graded race like the Distaff at seven furlongs, a distance at which she is already proven.
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