Marathon distance suits Personal Best, Ever Summer in Friday allowance

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – There were sufficient entries to card 10 races Friday at Aqueduct, with four events scheduled for the grass, including a first-level allowance for fillies and mares at 1 3/8 miles over the inner turf course.

First post Friday is 11:50 a.m.

With time running out on the turf season, it’s no surprise that the allowance feature drew a full field of 10 plus an also-eligible, as well as two main-track-only entrants.

Personal Best, trained by Shug McGaughey, and Ever Summer, conditioned by Christophe Clement, have already demonstrated the ability to handle a marathon distance, having won a maiden race at 1 5/16 miles and 1 3/8 miles, respectively.

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Personal Best, by Tapit out of the Grade 1 Flower Bowl winner War Flag, won her maiden at Kentucky Downs in a visually impressive performance. Breaking from the outside in a field of 11 under Tyler Gaffalione, Personal Best raced a close-up third, dragged Gaffalione to the lead approaching the top of the lane, and after just one crack of a right-handed whip opened up and won by four, having been taken in hand 20 yards before the wire. The third-place finisher from that race, Quality Star, came back to win her maiden at Keeneland by four lengths.

Personal Best finished second when she tried winners for the first time Oct. 27 in an entry-level allowance going nine furlongs over a Keeneland course labeled good. After racing between horses down the backstretch, Personal Best had to go five wide in the lane and was outfinished by Love Princess, beaten one length.

Though Personal Best has worn blinkers in her last three starts, McGaughey said he is removing them Friday.

“I thought she was hanging on me when she was getting to her horses, especially down at Keeneland,” McGaughey said. “She did it a year before at Keeneland and she tried to do it at Kentucky Downs, but Tyler blamed [the uniqueness of] Kentucky Downs.”

Irad Ortiz Jr., who is 3 for 12 over the last two years on McGaughey-trained runners, is aboard Personal Best for the first time Friday.

Ever Summer was a forward factor when winning a maiden race Sept. 30 at Delaware Park. In her first start against winners, she prompted a slow pace and retreated to fifth behind winner and stablemate Myriskyaffair in a 1 3/16-mile allowance race here Oct. 23. Ensemble and Unruly July finished three-quarters of a length apart when second and third in that same race and are back in this spot.

Clement also sends out Home for Christmas, whose better races have come when she’s on or close to the lead. She figures to be prominent early from the outside post under Joel Rosario.

My Lips Are Sealed is trying this distance for the first time. A New York-bred daughter of Algorithms trained by Rob Atras, My Lips Are Sealed has two wins over good ground going shorter when trained by George Weaver.

Should rain force this race to the dirt, it will be run at 1 3/16 miles. Suspended Campaign and Wasp, second and third in a nine-furlong dirt race here Oct. 28, would become the major players.

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