Leave No Trace gets final test before return to stakes company

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Trainer Phil Serpe wants to leave no doubt that Leave No Trace is ready for a return to stakes company, so he has found the Grade 1 winner another allowance race in which to prove herself Thursday at Aqueduct.

Leave No Trace, who staved off retirement winning a second-level allowance race on March 17, heads a field of six going six furlongs in a third-level allowance that goes as race 2 on Thursday’s eight-race offering at Aqueduct as the second half of the 16-day spring meet commences.

After winning the Grade 1 Spinaway at Saratoga in 2022, Leave No Trace lost seven consecutive races before returning to a dirt sprint in an allowance that she won by a neck over Dame Cinco. Serpe had tried Leave No Trace long on dirt, then sprinting on turf and synthetic before that March 17 race.

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“Three sprints on the dirt, three wins on the dirt, I saw that,” Serpe said when asked what he took out of Leave No Trace’s last race. “I know this journey isn’t over yet. That was her last shot to show something because we don’t want to torture her, to make her do something she didn’t want to do anymore.”

In the mornings, Leave No Trace continues to show that she wants to compete. On Sunday, she blew out three furlongs in 35.49 seconds over the Belmont Park training track.

“I guess she’s touting herself a little bit,” Serpe said. “I think before we dive back into stakes company, let’s see. This looks like the right field to know if you belong in a stakes.”

Leave No Trace, who breaks from post 4 under Jose Lezcano, likes to be involved early in her races. There does appear to be other speed types in here, including Quick Munny, who drops out of a fourth-place finish in the Correction, and perhaps Royal Poppy, a recent second-level allowance winner who may have to use her speed from the rail under Dylan Davis to at least get a forward position.

“We’re probably going to end up stalking,” Ray Handal, the trainer of Royal Poppy, said. “Dylan’s on fire, he’ll figure it out.”

Handal also entered Funny How, who has gone off form after a five-race winning streak that culminated in February 2023 with a victory in the Broadway Stakes. Funny How, if she runs, would be wheeling back 11 days after running last in an allowance at Laurel Park off a five-month layoff.

Funny How is 5 for 7 at Aqueduct and breaks from post 2 under Katie Davis.

The 7-year-old mare Mosienko won a similar spot as this in December, before finishing fifth in the Interborough on Jan. 27, her most recent start. She does get back on Lasix for this race in which she is being offered for the $80,000 claiming price.

Pharoah’s Heart was claimed for $50,000 by David Jacobson off a winning effort going a mile. Her lone win at six furlongs came in her first start three years ago at Santa Anita.

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