Stymie Stakes likely next spot for Sunny Ridge

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Sunny Ridge, the winner of Saturday’s $125,000 Jazil Stakes at Aqueduct, likely will make his next start in the $125,000 Stymie Stakes at Aqueduct on March 12.

Owner Dennis Drazin said Monday that he was willing to entertain an offer to wheel his horse back in two weeks for the $12 million Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream, but the last slot for that 12-horse field was taken Monday by Noble Bird, whose connections made a deal with Earle Mack.

Before that news, Drazin said it would have been a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to run in a race like the Pegasus. Drazin said he had been approached last month by a slot holder who didn’t have a horse, but that was presumably before Sunny Ridge finished a well-beaten third in the Queens County.

With the Pegasus seemingly no longer an option, Drazin said the Stymie becomes the next logical spot. The Stymie is run at 1 1/8 miles over the inner track, a surface over which Sunny Ridge also won the Wither Stakes last January.

“He seems to like the inner track,” Drazin said. “He’s doing very good up there. If he doesn’t come to Florida, then the next dance would be at Aqueduct. The horse is doing great. He really ran huge.”

In addition to winning two stakes at Aqueduct, Sunny Ridge finished second to three-time Grade 1 winner Exaggerator in the Delta Jackpot at 2 and third to Exaggerator in the Haskell last summer at Monmouth.