Rice has strong contenders in both allowance races

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – There were not enough entries to fill the $100,000 Rego Park Stakes for New York-bred 3-year-olds scheduled for Sunday at Aqueduct, leaving a pair of first-level allowance races to highlight the nine-race program.

In race 8, Tonal Impact will try to return to the winner’s circle in a 1 1/8-mile affair for older horses after his four-race winning streak was snapped going 1 3/16 miles last out.

Four different trainers won races with Tonal Impact during that streak, as he was claimed three consecutive times, most recently for $40,000 by trainer Linda Rice last November at Churchill Downs. Rice won a starter allowance with Tonal Impact here on Dec. 18 before he lost a hard-fought decision to the resurgent Gasoline on Jan. 5.

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“I actually think he may be better going a little shorter,” Rice said. “Even a flat mile would be good for him. But, frankly, that’s the way the race came up and it’s still well within his wheelhouse.”

Luni Sima and Six Percent look like other contenders in this seven-horse field.

Luni Sima, a son of Keen Ice trained by Peter Walder, is coming off a half-length defeat in this condition going a one-turn mile. He was third the lone time he tried nine furlongs.

“His breeding suggests he’ll go that far,” Walder said. “He likes it when he’s close to the pace; going a mile and an eighth should allow him to do that.”

Six Percent, trained by Jeremiah Englehart, won a $25,000 claimer going 1 1/8 miles at Saratoga. He is coming off a second-level allowance win versus New York-breds going one mile.

In Sunday’s ninth, a six-furlong race for fillies and mares, Rice brings Hot Fudge back to the races off a 449-day layoff. Over the last three years, Rice is 11 for 90 with a $1.32 ROI bringing horses back off a layoff of greater than 180 days, according to DRF Formulator. Her greatest success with that move came in 2020.

Hot Fudge, who won her maiden on dirt but was second in a turf stakes, had multiple issues that simply required time, according to Rice. First, she had a pelvis injury and then she had a pinched vertebra in her neck.

“She’s shown plenty of talent; there was no reason not to bring her back,” Rice said. “She’s pretty fit. Is she better on the turf than the dirt? Possibly. But she might be good enough to win on the dirt. I don’t know which surface she’s better on right now, but this is the race we have in front of us.”

Hot Fudge breaks from the outside post in this 11-horse field and gets Lasix for the first time.

Among the other contenders are Ruvies in Time, a 7-year-old mare who has seven wins; Western Lane, a recent maiden winner; and Champagne Poetry, the 2022 Ruthless Stakes runner-up who returns from an eight-month layoff for Chad Summers.

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