Ladies Stakes a distance test for red-hot Weigh the Risks
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OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Now that Weigh the Risks has found a home on dirt, it’s time to find out just how far she wants to run.
After winning five of her last six starts, all around one turn, Weigh the Risks will move to two turns for Saturday’s $135,000 Ladies Stakes going 1 1/8 miles at Aqueduct. Inaugurated in 1868, the Ladies is being run for the 154th time on Saturday.
Trainer Chad Brown chose running Weigh the Risks in the Ladies over waiting another week for the $135,000 Interborough at seven furlongs, a distance at which the 5-year-old mare is 2 for 2. After winning the Pumpkin Pie Stakes going seven furlongs on Nov. 8, Weigh the Risks came back five weeks later to win the Go for Wand, a one-turn mile, by 9 3/4 lengths, earning a career-best 103 Beyer Speed Figure.
“She’s training really good. She looks like she’s carrying her speed over a route of ground. We’ll see if she can handle the mile and an eighth,” Brown said.
In a field of eight, Weigh the Risks will break from the rail under Manny Franco.
Last winter, Quietside was at Oaklawn Park, where she was establishing her credentials for the Kentucky Oaks by winning the Honeybee and Fantasy stakes in February and March. After finishing sixth in the Kentucky Oaks, Quietside was given several months off.
Quietside returned from a six-month layoff in the Grade 2 Raven Run Stakes, a swiftly run seven-furlong race in which she finished a well-beaten eighth in a 10-horse field. Stretched back out around two turns, Quietside finished second behind Fully Subscribed in the Grade 3 Comely. Fully Subscribed, trained by Brown, had previously won the Grade 2 Mother Goose.
“The seven furlongs, long layoff, Grade 2 at Keeneland – I was swinging for the fences, to say the least,” John Ortiz, trainer of Quietside, said about the Raven Run. “She wasn’t prepared for that. She came back and showed she is the same horse at the right distance, so she needed it. More importantly, she came out of it in great shape.”
Jose Lezcano rides Quietside from post 7.
Trainer Todd Pletcher has won the Ladies five times, including last year with Tizzy in the Sky. Saturday, he’ll send out Scalable, who in her last two starts has finished behind Weigh the Risks. Scalable, who won last year’s Interborough at seven furlongs, will break from post 4 under Kendrick Carmouche.
Just Katherine, third behind Weigh the Risks and Scalable in the Go for Wand off a 14-month layoff, has two wins at 1 1/8 miles. One of those wins came in a second-level allowance in the mud in December 2023.
Ourdaydreaminggirl, beaten a neck at 42-1 in the Cotillion in September, finished fifth in the Mother Goose and third in the Comely in her last two starts.
Low Country Magic, Sultry Lass, and Curlin’s Girl complete the field.
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