Party Boat takes another shot in Winter Memories

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Party Boat’s only victory in her 3-year-old season came in a listed stakes over Aqueduct’s turf course in April. Her connections hope she can end her season with a repeat performance when Party Boat returns to New York for Thursday’s second running of the $150,000 Winter Memories Stakes for 3-year-old fillies at Aqueduct.

As one of the last opportunities for 3-year-old fillies to race within their own age group on turf this year, the Winter Memories drew a field of 11 for the grass plus three in the unlikely event the race is transferred to the dirt.

Party Boat won the Memories of Silver Stakes going 1 1/16 miles – the same distance as the Winter Memories – here in April. Since then, she has finished second in three of four races, all stakes, including a nose loss to Rubilinda in the Pebbles Stakes on Oct. 14 at Belmont. Rubilinda on Monday shipped to Southern California for Sunday’s Grade 1 Matriarch at Del Mar.

“That was a brutal beat,” trainer Graham Motion said. “I really thought she might have got up in that race.”

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Motion said he was initially planning the Pebbles to be Party Boat’s last start of the year, but “she came out of the race so well it’s almost a shame not to run her.”

“She’s a real blue-collar horse, a real hard-tryer,” he said.

Motion also will start Dancing Breeze, who finished third in a first-level allowance race here Oct. 25, her first start for Motion.

“Hopefully, she’s this caliber,” Motion said. “She got shuffled back in her first race, then got a little bit keen. Hopefully, that race under her belt will move her forward.”

As is often the case in a New York turf stakes, trainer Chad Brown will start three contenders in the Winter Memories. Thais, who finished a head behind Rubilinda and Party Boat in the Pebbles, drew the rail, while Rymska and Taperge, one-two in the Grade 3 Commonwealth Oaks at Laurel on Sept. 30, drew posts 8 and 10, respectively.