Pushiness ready for 2024 debut after additional workouts

A six-furlong allowance race at Los Alamitos on Thursday is the second attempt for a 2024 debut by Pushiness, a stakes winner at Del Mar last summer.

Pushiness, trained by Michael McCarthy for Mike Repole, was scratched from the Pleasanton Oaks at the Alameda County Fair in Northern California on June 15. By waiting for Thursday’s allowance race, McCarthy has had time to give Pushiness an additional three workouts.

“It’s time to get going,” McCarthy said Monday. “She’s training forwardly.”

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Pushiness starts in the fifth race of a nine-race program that begins a four-day racing weekend at Los Alamitos. The track’s summer season concludes Sunday. Del Mar begins its summer meeting July 20.

Pushiness, by Kantharos, won her first two starts last year – a maiden race at five furlongs at Santa Anita and the CTBA Stakes for statebred 2-year-old fillies at 5 1/2 furlongs at Del Mar last August.

Pushiness finished seventh of 12 in the Grade 1 Del Mar Debutante Stakes at seven furlongs last September in her final start of 2023. She set the pace before fading in the final furlong. Pushiness had one workout later in September before she was given a rest.

“She wasn’t doing very well,” McCarthy said. “I think a couple of tough races got to her.”

Pushiness is part of a field of six fillies and mares on Thursday and is the only stakes winner in the field. The field includes Kristi’s Tiger, a three-time winner in 2023 who has not raced since a win in a seven-furlong allowance race on Dec. 31 at Santa Anita.

Kristi’s Tiger, entered to be claimed for $40,000 under the race’s optional claiming terms, is one of two runners on Thursday’s program trained by Librado Barocio, who had three runners scratched at Los Alamitos on the weekend of June 22-23 over concern that one of them was administered an illegal substance before a race.

Barocio strongly denied any wrongdoing at the time and said the scratch stemmed from a misunderstanding between a groom who works for his stable and a security officer in the track’s test barn. Barocio did not have any starters at Los Alamitos last weekend.

On Thursday, Barocio also starts Gila in the sixth race, an allowance race at a mile for fillies and mares.

Gila joined Barocio’s stable after her last start, a fourth-place finish in an allowance race at a mile on April 26 at Santa Anita. Gila finished behind Sugar Fish, who later won the Grade 2 Summertime Oaks at Santa Anita last month. At the time, Gila was trained by Bob Hess Jr.

On Thursday, Gila is part of a field of seven that includes the Hess-trained Issa Court, winner of an allowance race for California-bred fillies and mares at a mile on May 31 at Santa Anita, and Grazia, a well-regarded 3-year-old filly trained by Bob Baffert who was fourth in an allowance race at Oaklawn Park in April in her lone start this year.

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