McKulick needs to up her game in Waya

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Though she’s won 7 of 19 races and earned nearly $2 million, McKulick has never won consecutive starts. That may bode well for her Friday, when McKulick looks to rebound from a disappointing third-place finish in the Grade 2 Flower Bowl at Saratoga last out in the Grade 3, $200,000 Waya Stakes at Aqueduct.

McKulick won last year’s Waya, a 1 3/8-mile turf race, following a second-place finish as the 2-5 favorite in the Flower Bowl. While she wasn’t 2-5 in this year’s Flower Bowl, McKulick didn’t figure to be beaten by her 31-1 stablemate Idea Generation, who, while put in the Flower Bowl as a pacemaker, went all the way under Florent Geroux, beating favored War Like Goddess. Idea Generation is back in the Waya, a race in which she finished second to McKulick last year.

Prior to the Flower Bowl, McKulick had won the Grade 2 Glens Falls at Saratoga over turf labeled “good” and with an early pace that was more than three seconds quicker than that of the Flower Bowl, which was run over yielding turf. Still, Brown didn’t offer much of an excuse for McKulick’s dull performance.

“Of course, a quicker pace would have helped her but she didn’t really run as if she was going to win the race, so I don’t think she really fired,” Brown said. “I’m not going to blame anything really because she’s run well at Saratoga before. She didn’t run her best race and I don’t really know why.”

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Idea Generation likely benefited from a slow pace, yielding ground, and a lack of respect from her competition when she won the Flower Bowl. The turf course figures to be good to firm on Friday and Idea Generation figures to be on the lead again, this time under Eric Cancel.

“I know she was there to make the pace for part of her last entry but she was also in there with a chance to get a piece of it at a minimum and she got all of it,” Brown said. “If she does that again, then she’s come to hand as a real player in the division, so I’m not ruling it out that she could win this race.”

Trainer Christophe Clement has the uncoupled pair of La Mehana and Avenue Niel. La Mehana may have been a pace factor in the Robert G. Dick had she not bobbled at the break. She raced a close-up third from the inside before ultimately finishing in a dead heat for last. Prior to that, she was beaten just a head by the Brown-trained Royalty Interest while finishing 1 3/4 lengths in front of McKulick in the Grade 3 Sheepshead Bay in May.

Avenue Niel rallied behind a slow pace to win a 1 1/2-mile second-level allowance at Kentucky Downs on Sept. 1. This will be her U.S. stakes debut.

Beautiful Love, trained by Charlie Appleby for Godolphin, steps up to meet her elders after winning the Grade 3 Jockey Club Oaks here Sept. 14.

Surprisingly, Immensitude, and Star Fortress complete the field for the Waya which goes as race 7 on the eight-race card.

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