Shippers shooting for first stakes win in Ruthless
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Shippers Knowing Glance and Shotgun Hottie look to have found a reasonable spot to try and win their first stakes in a field of seven 3-year-old fillies set to run seven furlongs in Sunday’s $100,000 Ruthless Stakes at Aqueduct.
Knowing Glance was claimed for $150,000 by trainer Mike Maker for Peter Proscia’s Paradise Farms Corp. and David Staudacher at Churchill Downs last Oct. 2. Knowing Glance, trained then by Al Stall Jr., had finished third in two maiden special weight races at Saratoga, and Proscia felt there was some upside to claiming the daughter of Jimmy Creed.
Maker wheeled Knowing Glance back 19 days after the claim and she won an optional-claiming race at Keeneland, earning $40,796 to help start paying for the claim. Knowing Glance was beaten 12 1/2 lengths in an overnight sprint stakes at Churchill Downs in November before getting beat 22 1/2 lengths in a two-turn mile allowance at Oaklawn Park on Dec. 31. Secret Oath, who won that race, came back to win the Martha Washington Stakes impressively.
The cutback to seven furlongs in the Ruthless “should hit her right between the eyes,” Proscia said.
Knowing Glance, who shows a series of steady works at Oaklawn Park, will break from post 6 under Manny Franco.
Shotgun Hottie, who is entered in next week’s Fasig-Tipton Kentucky winter mixed sale in Lexington, Ky., is a daughter of Gun Runner. She began her career at Churchill Downs and in her third start won a 1 1/16-mile maiden race. She then set the pace and faded to fourth in the Untapable Stakes at Fair Grounds on Dec. 26.
Trained by Tom Amoss then, Shotgun Hattie has been transferred by owners Omar Aldabbagh and Jeff Ganje to William Morey, who is enjoying a strong Aqueduct winter meet with four wins from 10 starters. Morey said he was hoping to run Shotgun Hattie a little farther than this, but that an allowance race going longer failed to fill.
“She’s trained well on the Belmont training track,” Morey said. “She trains more like a route horse, but she ran a good race at six and a half. I think seven will be okay.”
Trevor McCarthy rides Shotgun Hattie from the outside post.
Miss Interpret beat Knowing Glance in a maiden race at Saratoga and faces her again in the Ruthless. Miss Interpret, a daughter of Street Sense owned by Laurie Wolf and Glen Hill Farm, won the off-the-turf P.G. Johnson Stakes going seven furlongs at Saratoga. Miss Interpret was overmatched when running eighth in the Grade 1 Alcibiades and seventh in the Grade 2 Demoiselle.
She finished third as the 6-5 favorite in the Parx Futurity on Dec. 29 under jockey Kendrick Carmouche.
“Kendrick thought she might benefit from some blinkers,” said Byron Hughes, assistant to trainer Todd Pletcher. “She breezed well in them.”
Jet Force, a Pennsylvania-bred daughter of Jimmy Creed, won two races in a 10-day span at Penn National in December. Trainer Jeremiah O’Dwyer said Jet Force had some mucus last week, but things have cleared up and she should be ready to run Sunday.
Jaime Rodriguez, aboard for her two wins at Penn National, will be in to ride Sunday.
Champagne Poetry, Landslid, and Lady Milagro, a supplemental nominee, complete the field.