Shoot It True earns 93 Beyer Speed Figure with Notebook triumph

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Trainer Wesley Ward won the Grade 1 Test in 2022 with Chi Town Lady - coincidentally, that mare is entered in an allowance race at Aqueduct on Friday. In Shoot It True, Ward hopes he’ll have an opportunity to win the Test again in 2025.

Shoot It True, a 2-year-old daughter of Munnings, returned from a six-month layoff Saturday with a sharp 4 1/4-length victory in the $100,000 Notebook Stakes, in which she defeated a group of New York-bred males. The 93 Beyer Speed Figure she earned for the win was the second-highest figure earned by a 2-year-old filly this year, one point less than Senza Parole recorded for winning a maiden race at Saratoga.

Though the Notebook was her first start in six months and just third overall - all against males - Shoot It True will head back to Keeneland to spend the winter and she is not expected to race again until the spring. A race like the Beaumont, typically run in early April at Keeneland, could be a comeback race for Shoot It True.

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“There’s nothing for her in the winter, everything is summer,” Ward said. “Start her back [training] right after Christmas at Keeneland.”

All of Shoot It True’s races have come at six furlongs or shorter, but Ward doesn’t see seven furlongs - the distance of the Beaumont and Test - as being an issue for the filly next year.

“With a number like that she can compete with anybody in the county going seven,” Ward said. “If you watch her yesterday, she was pricking her ears, relaxed, that’ll help her go on and get that extra eighth of a mile.”

With the Angels also headed for open company

With the Angels will likely be aimed at similar races next year as Shoot It True.

With the Angels, a New York-bred daughter of Omaha Beach, capped a perfect 4-for-4 campaign with a two-length victory in Sunday’s $100,000 Key Cents Stakes for New York-bred juvenile fillies. With the Angels used a different tack, coming from off the pace after she won her three previous starts – including stakes victories in the Joseph A. Gimma and Maid of the Mist – in front-running fashion. With the Angels, who earned a 79 Beyer Speed Figure for her Key Cents victory, will now get a two-month break at a farm in Ocala, Fla. before rejoining trainer Linda Rice in New York in early February.

Rice, as does Ward, will have the option of starting With the Angels back in New York-bred races in early 2025, but the likely goal for both horses are races like the Victory Ride in early summer and the Test in early August.

“Seven furlongs might be her sweet spot,” Rice said after With the Angels won the Key Cents. “We’ll find out in the long run.”

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