Rice looks to continue hot streak

After a slow start, trainer Linda Rice has sent out seven winners from her last 24 starters at the Aqueduct winter meet to move into a tie for second place in the standings. Rice looks to add to her totals Friday with seven entries in five races on the eight-race card.

Rice has entered both New Year’s Wish and Gone Glimmering in Thursday’s featured second-level allowance for females going a mile, however Rice indicated Wednesday that New Year’s Wish may not run. New Year’s Wish, who displayed some gate problems last winter, has not started since finishing last in this same condition last February.

If New Year’s Wish doesn’t start, Rice will still have Gone Glimmering, whom she claimed for $62,500 on Dec. 18. Gone Glimmering stumbled at the start of that race and faded to last as the 4-5 favorite. Prior to that defeat, Gone Glimmering had won twice in this condition – once for the tag and once under the allowance condition – going seven furlongs for Rob Atras. She runs with a $62,500 tag on Friday.

“I think stretching her to a mile there’s a good chance that may work,” Rice said. “I would think she would be forwardly placed going a mile.”

Kansas Kis finished second when running in this condition for the first time Jan. 15. She was getting a good trip under Dylan Davis, had a two-length lead in midstretch, but couldn’t see out the mile, finishing 1 1/4 lengths behind Flashndynamite. Kansas Kis’s only other try at a mile came in last year’s Busher, when she was beaten just a nose by Water White.

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Trainer Ray Handal said he would like to run Kansas Kis in either the Heavenly Prize going a mile on March 6 or the Correction going six furlongs on March 13 and didn’t want to have eight weeks between starts.

“I think her best distance is probably seven-eighths, where they go a little quicker and she can settle and make one run,” Handal said. “She’s clearly talented no matter what she does.”

Kansas Kis will break from the rail under Davis.

Stand for the Flag, who finished nine lengths behind Kansas Kis in that Jan. 15 race; Brass Ring, a 27-1 winner of a first-level allowance on Jan. 16; and Foxtail, winner of this condition last October and now in for the tag, complete the field.

In race 7, Prince of Pharoahs makes his third start off a layoff for Rice. He twice finished second in this first-level New York-bred allowance condition, including a half-length defeat to the repeating winner Wudda U Think Now on Jan. 8.

“I would say he’s very live in there,” Rice said.

In race 6, a maiden race for New York-bred females, Rice brings La Kara Mia – the first foal out of champion mare La Verdad – back to the races off a six-month layoff. Rice said this seven-furlong race “may be a little short for her, but it’s a good place to start.”

First post Friday is 1:20 p.m.