Smokin' Hot Kitty on a heater coming into Johnstone

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – The pedigree suggests Smokin’ Hot Kitty should be a turf horse. The results say Smokin’ Hot Kitty won’t be seeing the grass again anytime soon.

A winner of her last four dirt starts, Smokin’ Hot Kitty goes for her first stakes victory in Wednesday’s $125,000 Johnstone Mile Stakes for New York-bred fillies and mares. Seven were entered in the one-mile race, but trainer Bruce Levine, who entered three, said Echo in Eternity would scratch.

Smokin’ Hot Kitty is by the prolific turf sire Kitten’s Joy out of the Street Sense mare Smoke Signals, who went 3 for 14 in her career – all on turf – and who has produced two turf winners. Smokin’ Hot Kitty has two wins on turf, but she has raised her game since March, when she won a nonwinners-of-three $25,000 claiming race at Aqueduct for fillies and mares.

Smokin’ Hot Kitty is running back three weeks after she won a New York-bred second-level allowance going 1 1/8 miles here July 18. She is 3 for 3 at the one-mile distance.

“She’s just in good form right now,” trainer Horacio DePaz said. “I’d rather run her than train her. Her weight’s really good, her appetite’s been really good. We let her breeze an easy three-eighths [in 38.89 seconds on Friday]. She ate up and was happy.”

Kendrick Carmouche rides Smokin’ Hot Kitty from post 3.

In Cupid’s Heart, Levine sends out a winner of an open first-level allowance race on June 30 at Aqueduct, her first start in almost nine months. Cupid’s Heart beat St. Benedicts Prep, who came back to win a first-level allowance here Saturday with an 89 Beyer Speed Figure.

“I thought it was a very big effort,” Levine said of Cupid’s Heart’s return race. “She’s trained really good since.”

Sunset Louise hasn’t won since she took an off-the-turf allowance in July 2023 against just two opponents. Despite her recent poor form – and her 0-for-7 record without Lasix – Levine likes what he’s seen from the mare since he got her up to Saratoga.

“She’s really doing good up here,” Levine said. “She was doing so-so last year and this spring she was doing so-so, but since I got her up here – I don’t know why – she’s really training good. She’s going to run a big race. She doesn’t get Lasix, but she’s really training good, that filly.”

Sterling Silver is a three-time New York-bred stakes winner, but those wins have come at distances shorter than one mile. She is coming out of a fifth-place finish, beaten three lengths, in the Grade 2 Honorable Miss here July 24.

Bill Mott, Sterling Silver’s trainer, said the one-mile distance “is better than six [furlongs] and it’s New York-breds.”

Bustin Bay, runner-up in three of the last four stakes in which she’s participated, and Maggy’s Palace, a recent first-level statebred allowance winner on June 30 at Aqueduct, complete the field.

The Johnstone goes as race 9 on a 10-race card that begins at 1:10 p.m. with the rescheduled Jonathan Kiser Novice Steeplechase.