Run of the River returns in Belmont feature

ELMONT, N.Y. – It wasn’t by design that trainer Shug McGaughey stopped on Run of the River following her impressive debut win at Gulfstream Park on March 30. After an illness sidelined her, Run of the River returns to the races Wednesday in a $77,000 first-level allowance at 1 1/16 miles on turf that serves as the feature on Belmont Park’s nine-race card.

Five weeks, or 25 racing days, remain in the Belmont spring/summer meet before the action moves upstate to Saratoga for a 40-day session beginning July 18.

McGaughey hopes Run of the River is good enough to participate in one or both of the graded turf stakes for 3-year-old fillies at Saratoga this summer. Run of the River, a daughter of Tapit and a half-sister to the Grade 3 winner Heavenly Landing, kicked home powerfully under Alex Solis to win her debut at Gulfstream Park by 3 1/2 lengths.

“She won easy; we thought she would run good,” McGaughey said of the debut.

McGaughey said that when he shipped Run of the River to New York, she got sick.

“We lost a little bit of time,” he said. “It took a little bit out of her, but her last two breezes have gone very well.”

Run of the River, a $350,000 yearling purchase by Stuart Janney III, will break from post 5 under Solis.

Trainer Christophe Clement, fresh off his victory in Saturday’s Belmont Stakes with Tonalist, sends out the New York-bred filly Summer Solo, a half-sister to a pair of stakes winners. Summer Solo meets open company for the first time, having beaten New York-breds in her debut Nov. 13 at Aqueduct and again at Belmont on May 18.

“She won well because I didn’t think she was quite 100 percent fit,” Clement said of Summer Solo’s last race. “She’s a fitter horse today, and I thought it was a more mature kind of race. She’s done nothing wrong so far. We’ll find out how good she is.”

Clement said he would have preferred to have kept Summer Solo with New York-breds but could not find a second-level allowance or an overnight stakes to fill.

Joel Rosario, who won the Belmont for Clement, has the call on Summer Solo.

Trainer Graham Motion sends in Irish Score from Maryland for this engagement. She is coming off two wide trips when third and fourth in two tries in this allowance condition. On Wednesday, she breaks from the rail under Irad Ortiz Jr.

Pink Poppy, trained by Chad Brown, is coming off a victory in what appears to be a live maiden race at Belmont in early May.

Whispering, Miss Frost, and Morethanawarning complete the field.