Pletcher getting right signs from latest Busanda winner

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Always Shopping on Sunday at Aqueduct gave trainer Todd Pletcher his fifth victory in the Busanda Stakes, all since 2011. That list of winners includes Princess of Sylmar, who used her victory in the 2013 Busanda as a springboard to four Grade 1 victories that year, including the Kentucky Oaks.

Always Shopping has a way to go before she can be considered in the class of Princess of Sylmar, but Pletcher and owner-breeder Mike Repole were encouraged by what they saw Sunday.

“We were very pleased with the performance,” Pletcher said Monday. “We felt like a mile and an eighth is what she’s been looking for, which is why we chose to run her as a maiden in the Busanda. We decided that after the last race when she closed well at a mile.”

Always Shopping closed well again Sunday, receiving a ground-saving trip from Manny Franco on a day when the inside was very good before tipping outside of pace-setting Filly Joel in upper stretch. Always Shopping covered 1 1/8 miles in 1:52.24 and earned a 76 Beyer Speed Figure.

Pletcher said Monday he had not yet decided what might be next for Always Shopping, a daughter of Awesome Again out of the stakes-winning mare Stopshoppingmaria. Pletcher was unlikely to back Always Shopping up in distance for the one-mile Busher Stakes here on March 9, and said he could simply train the filly up to the Grade 2 Gazelle here on April 6. The Gazelle, like the Busanda, is run at 1 1/8 miles.

Though Always Shopping’s speed figures pale in comparison to the likes of division leaders Jaywalk and Bellafina, Pletcher does see her heading in the right direction.

“The one thing she has done is she’s improved a little bit in each start,” Pletcher said. “Now, she needs to make another move forward to compete at that next level. Yesterday, once she made the lead, she was looking around. There might have been more in the tank had someone challenged her.”

Overdeliver possible for Gotham

Always Shopping’s victory in the Busanda helped pick up Pletcher’s and Repole’s spirits following Moretti’s sixth-place finish in Saturday’s Grade 3 Withers Stakes.

Pletcher said he had no plausible excuse for Moretti’s effort, saying that the horse simply stayed one-paced when Manny Franco began to ask him for run at the three-furlong pole.

Pletcher said Moretti would likely head to South Florida where he would regroup.

Meanwhile, Pletcher said that Overdeliver, a well-beaten second to Win Win Win in the Pasco Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs on Jan. 19, is possible for the Grade 3, $300,000 Gotham Stakes at Aqueduct on March 9.

Overdeliver, a son of Overanalyze, won his debut going six furlongs at Gulfstream last December before finishing 7 1/4 lengths behind Win Win Win, who set a Tampa track record in running seven furlongs in 1:20.89.

“I thought for only his second start that it was not a bad effort facing horses that were more seasoned than him,” Pletcher said.

Mind Control, the Jerome and Grade 1 Hopeful winner, and Not That Brady, runner-up in the Withers, are pointing to the Gotham.