Trainer Mike Maker is looking for similar bounce-back efforts from two runners in a pair of $200,000 statebred stakes on Empire Showcase Day at Aqueduct. My Mane Squeeze will return from a two-month layoff in the Iroquois, while The Wine Steward will switch back to dirt with a strong chance in the Hudson. Between March 2024 and June 2025, 4-year-old filly My Mane Squeeze ran in 10 straight graded stakes races and won the Grade 2 Eight Belles and Grade 3 Dogwood. Maker confirmed that the Iroquois will be her final start before she is sent to the Fasig-Tipton November sale on Nov. 3. Barring two races against maidens, she has run in stakes company for her entire career. “My Mane Squeeze, she’s doing very well, and this will be her last race before she goes to the sale,” Maker said. “So looking forward to her.” Her winning efforts in graded stakes company might have brought her prestige, but they paled in comparison to her performance when Maker entered her in the $150,000 Johnstone at Saratoga in July. :: Get the Inside Track with the FREE DRF Morning Line Email Newsletter. Subscribe now.  Back against New York-bred rivals for the first time since February 2024, the Audible filly went straight to the front and never looked back. She earned a career-best 100 Beyer Speed Figure while cruising home to a dominant 6 1/4-length victory. Maker was encouraged by her improved showing and entered her in the Grade 1 Ballerina. It was a stiff test but nothing she had not handled before, which made it all the more surprising when she was eased by jockey Luis Saez and walked off. “Nothing really showed up, so I really don’t have an answer,” Maker said. With time off to recover from the unexplained blip, My Mane Squeeze could be a looming danger in the Iroquois. In five career starts in statebred stakes company, she has earned four victories by 15 1/4 combined lengths. Other key contenders in the Iroquois are entering with other questions to answer. Sterling Silver, a 6-year-old mare trained by Bill Mott, finished third in the Grade 2 Gallant Bloom last time out and should have a winning chance. She has come up short in five straight races, however, and finished 9 3/4 lengths behind My Mane Squeeze in the Johnstone. Stonewall Star, a mare trained by Horacio De Paz, will make her long-awaited 5-year-old debut Saturday. In her last start in December, she improved to earn her fifth stakes victory in the $100,000 Bay Ridge, taking down Sterling Silver by 2 1/4 lengths. Hudson While Maker takes one last dance with My Mane Squeeze in the Iroquois, 4-year-old colt The Wine Steward will have a more straightforward path to improvement in the Hudson. After a photo-finish defeat in the $150,000 John Morrissey at Saratoga in July, he tried the $150,000 Presque Isle Mile in September but didn’t take to the synthetic surface, finishing sixth. “I think he’ll be competitive,” Maker said. “He didn’t care for the [Tapeta] last time at Presque Isle, so cross that one off and move forward.” Like his stablemate in the Iroquois, The Wine Steward graduated from statebred stakes company early in his career before becoming a consistent graded stakes contender. Early in his 3-year-old season, he finished second in a pair of Grade 3 stakes before taking a longshot bid at the Belmont Stakes, where he finished ninth. He has struggled as a graded stakes runner in his 4-year-old campaign, but when he returned to statebred company in the Morrissey, he improved to miss by a head behind Doc Sullivan, next-out fourth-place finisher in the Grade 1 Forego. He will return to dirt at Aqueduct for the first time since his three-quarter-length defeat in the Peter Pan last year. The Wine Steward’s toughest competition in the Hudson will likely come from a pair of runners trained by Linda Rice. Acoustic Ave, a 5-year-old gelding, has not finished worse than second in six starts since entering Rice’s barn off a $45,000 claim. After a strong winning effort at Saratoga in August, he has come up short in back-to-back photo finishes at Aqueduct this month. If he runs in the Hudson, it will be his third start since Oct. 9. “Even in his losses, to me, those were winning efforts,” Rice said. “He barely was beaten by [El Grande O on Oct. 9]. I mean, in my mind, there’s no race to go back to. He ran fantastic, and he was pretty unlucky last week. He broke awkwardly and a horse came over on him and he lost all position and still only got beaten by a nose. So I don’t consider those losses whatsoever.” If Acoustic Ave doesn’t run, a possibility according to Rice, the trainer will still have a strong chance with Vettriano. The improving 4-year-old colt won 3 of 5 starts for trainer Brad Cox last year and earned a solid front-running victory in an $88,000 allowance at Aqueduct in September, his second start for Rice. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.