Sounds Delicious dominates Correction Stakes

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - If things had gone according to plan, Sounds Delicious would have been a stakes winner last March.

But an infection forced her to scratch from the Cicada Stakes here last March 25 and ultimately kept Sounds Delicious away from the races for 11 months.

The 4-year-old filly has come back with a vengeance. After getting beat a neck in her return last month, Sounds Delicious has recorded two dominating performances in two weeks, capped by an eight-length, front-running score in Saturday’s $100,000 Correction Stakes at Aqueduct.

Sent to the front immediately out of the gate by Angel Arroyo, Sounds Delicious was never challenged as she won for the fifth time in six career starts for trainer Linda Rice and owner Stud Al Aguila.

Spice Lady, who pursued Sounds Delicious in vain from second, got second by a head over late-running Startwithsilver, who was a head better than Quezon.

Though Rice already had the favorite in the race in Startwithsilver, she opted to run Sounds Delicious back 13 days after her 6 1/4-length allowance win here March 4.

“I gave that a lot of thought,” Rice said. “I left her in. This filly is big and strong and hardy and when I ran her last time she was a little heavy. To me, I thought ‘I can do this, I can run her back in two weeks.’ ”

Rice said she had a difficult time securing a rider as the Correction drew a field of 10. She got Arroyo, whom she rarely uses. Arroyo said he was given simple instructions from Rice.

“Linda told me try to go to the lead and if you go to the lead I think you’ll win the race,” Arroyo said.

Sounds Delicious opened up a two-length lead after a quarter in 22.62 seconds, was up by 2 1/2 after a half-mile in 46.56 and covered the six furlongs in 1:11.25. She returned $11.60 as third choice and earned a 92 Beyer Speed Figure.

“She’s just bigger and stronger,” Rice said. “She was good last year, maybe she’ll be better this year. She’s not La Verdad yet, but who knows? She’s by the same sire.”

La Verdad, the female champion sprinter of 2015 trained by Rice, and Sounds Delicious are both by Yes It’s True.

The Correction marked the final career race of Quezon, a 6-year-old New York-bred daughter of Tiz Wonderful who won five stakes in her career. She will be bred to 2017 Horse of the Year Gun Runner this spring.

“You can’t ever be disappointed with her,” trainere Robert Ribaudo said. “It’s nice to see her now have an opportunity to start a second career and she’s going out as sound as she came in, which is nice.”

Quezon retires with a record of 7-6-2 from 19 starts and earnings of $759,200.