Top Gunner looks poised for second straight stakes win in Bold Ruler

If the early returns mean anything, in Top Gunner trainer Brad Cox and owner Michael Dubb might have found themselves a useful prospect for New York’s sprint stakes this the fall and upcoming winter.

Claimed for $62,500 out of a key race at Saratoga in August, Top Gunner made quite the first impression, rallying along the inside in near darkness to win the $100,000 Parx Sprint, the last of 14 races on the Pennsylvania Derby Day card on Sept. 21.

Saturday, Top Gunner will seek a second straight stakes victory in the Grade 3, $175,000 Bold Ruler Stakes at Aqueduct.

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When Top Gunner won the Parx Sprint, he became the fourth next-out winner from that Aug. 4 race, which was run under second-level allowance/optional-claiming conditions. Top Gunner finished third in that race.

“We liked him since we picked him up there at Saratoga, kind of struggled on some ideas where to run him and we landed on that,” Cox said of the Parx race. “I thought he had a great trip, dropped to the inside, finished up well. It seemed like he’d hang in his races a little bit, whereas the other day he was finishing up with some run so that was encouraging moving forward and it was one of the better figures he’s run in his life.”

Top Gunner earned a career-best 95 Beyer Speed Figure in what was his 30th career start. Veeson, who finished third in the Parx Sprint, came back to win an allowance race on Oct. 19 with a career-best 94 Beyer.

Flavien Prat rides Top Gunner from post 2.

Scotland, winner of the Curlin Stakes at 1 1/8 miles as a 3-year-old, has raced exclusively in one-turn races this year. He won a seven-furlong allowance at Saratoga in July and then finished second to Mufasa in the Grade 3 Vosburgh last month. Mufasa is a Chilean-bred runner who has won 10 of 13 career starts and is pointing to the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile.

Trainer Bill Mott and the owners, LNJ Foxwoods, chose the six-furlong Bold Ruler over the one-mile Forty Niner, also on Saturday, in part due to an opinion from jockey Irad Ortiz Jr.

“He felt shorter might be a little better for him,” Mott said “We’ve gone back and forth with him. If it was at seven it’d make it easier.”

In his only try at six furlongs, Scotland finished second behind Happy Is a Choice in June at Churchill Downs. Happy Is a Choice has since come back to win the Louisville Thoroughbred Society and the third-place finisher from that June race, Surveillance, won the off-the-turf Troy Stakes at Saratoga and is in this field.

Little Vic, the 2023 Tom Fool winner on this track, is coming off an allowance win here on Sept. 19.

My Buddy B won the State Representative Sprint Stakes at Parx in August before finishing fifth in the Grade 2 Phoenix at Keeneland.

Runninsonofagun, who won the Bold Ruler in 2022 but is 0 for 8 since, and Twenty Four Mamba, complete the field.

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