Kantarmaci could have big day in Winter Starter Championships
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Several trainers are loading up for the Winter Starter Championships card on Saturday at Aqueduct, but no one will come close to outgunning Ilkay Kantarmaci. Across seven starter allowances, the prolific claiming trainer entered 10 horses, an all-out blitz in which he was only limited by a cap on entries.
“I think this is our day,” Kantarmaci said. “Like, the exact day. If I could enter more, you were going to maybe see 20 from me.”
Trainers are limited to two horses in each race in the Starter Championships.
Starter allowances on the Winter Starter Championships card are open to horses who have run for a certain claiming price since the start of 2025. These prescribed claiming-price restrictions range from $12,500 to $25,000. The races will offer a combined $545,000 in purse money, a massive incentive for Kantarmaci, who religiously tracks claimers with his brother, fellow trainer Mertkan Kantarmaci.
“This is a very important day for me,” Kantarmaci said. “We claim a lot of horses, almost every day. The purses [on Saturday] are good, so it’s exciting for us. With my brother, all we do is claim.”
Counting two horses in a claiming race early on the card, Kantarmaci will start a dozen horses Saturday.
In the featured eighth race, the $85,000 Stud Muffin for older horses who have run for a $25,000 tag or less in 2025-26, Kantarmaci will send out Indy Rags and Kevin’s Strike in a deep field of 10 at 1 3/8 miles. Both geldings will try the new distance in top form.
In his last two starts at Parx Racing for trainer Mary Pattershall, Kevin’s Strike won a conditioned $7,500 claiming race before outrunning his 30-1 odds to finish second in a first-level allowance March 5. Of Kantarmaci’s dozen entries, he is the only one who was not acquired through a claim by him or his brother.
Indy Rags began running for the trainer the usual way, and since getting claimed for $20,000 after a dull effort Feb. 12, the 4-year-old has improved in two subsequent starts at the same level. On March 20, he stretched back out to 1 1/8 miles and won by a head.
“We don’t get lucky all the time, but once in a while, we get lucky,” Kantarmaci said.
Like Kantarmaci, trainers Linda Rice and Rudy Rodriguez are predictably well stocked for the Winter Starter Championships, having entered five horses each. The two trainers will butt heads with Kantarmaci all day and challenge his pair in the Stud Muffin.
Adventurist made his first three starts in maiden special weights for Todd Pletcher, but as soon as the colt dropped down to maiden-claiming company last July, Rice pounced and claimed him for $20,000 after a six-length score at Saratoga. On Jan. 22, he won a $30,000 claiming race with a career-best 87 Beyer Speed Figure, his third victory at 1 1/8 miles.
“He’s a unique horse,” Rice said. “He really wants the mile and an eighth. I’m hoping he really moves forward at a mile and three-eighths.”
Rodriguez’s hopeful in the Stud Muffin is Power Seeker, a longtime Rice-trained horse he claimed for $20,000 last November. Once a high-level allowance contender, the 7-year-old most recently finished fourth in a $45,000 claimer in February.
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