Letruska will target the Azeri Stakes at Oaklawn next

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Letruska is heading home to South Florida following her win in the Grade 3, $300,000 Houston Ladies Classic on Sunday at Sam Houston Race Park, but plans are to return to this region, trainer Fausto Gutierrez said Tuesday.

Letruska is being pointed for the Grade 2, $350,000 Azeri Stakes at Oaklawn. The mile and a sixteenth race will be run March 13. Letruska is based at Palm Meadows, a training center in South Florida.

“We’ll probably go to Oaklawn for the Azeri,” Gutierrez said. “It’s good timing after this race. It’s the same distance. We have more than one month to recover.”

Letruska would fly in the week of the race, said Gutierrez. The Azeri is a stepping-stone to the Grade 1, $1 million Apple Blossom, an April 17 race at Oaklawn that is on the radar for Letruska.

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“She has the quality and capacity to be in that group,” Gutierrez said. “We prefer to go step by step.”

Letruska was a champion in Mexico, where she won two-thirds of that country’s Triple Crown for fillies. She’s won back-to-back Grade 3 races in her last two starts, taking the Rampart by nearly seven lengths in December at Gulfstream Park, then the Houston Ladies Classic by 3 1/2 lengths. In both races Letruska earned a career-best Beyer Speed Figure of 98.

“She’s shown she can run anywhere,” Gutierrez said. “She won at Saratoga. She won at Oaklawn. She won at Gulfstream. She won at Sam Houston. She’s a very good racehorse.”

Letruska is a 5-year-old daughter of Super Saver who races for her breeder, St. George Stables. Last year, she was an allowance winner at Oaklawn.