Apple Blossom Handicap

(Grade 1)

IT was business as usual for last year’s Eclipse Award winning mare Letruska as she won her second Grade 1 Apple Blossom Handicap at Oaklawn Park last Saturday.

The six-year-old homebred mare who began her career in Mexico, has now won 19 out of her 25 starts.

“We need to enjoy and celebrate her, because she’s one of the great ones in the history of the races,” trainer Fausto Gutierrez told the media.

The daughter of Super Saver had to be kept up to her work under jockey Jose Ortiz to hold off a determined stretch bid from Clairiere by a length and quarter but she never looked like being beaten.

Letruska was winning her seventh Grade 1 win while pushing her career earnings to $2,948,529.

In 2021, Letruska was the third-choice in the Apple Blossom behind two champions in Monomoy Girl, beaten a nose by Gutierrez’s mare, and Swiss Skydiver.

This time the now champion older dirt female of 2021 was one of two reigning champions in the field, Ce Ce was last year’s champion female sprinter while Clairiere and Maracuja were Grade 1 winners in the field of five.

Letruska, who gave 3lb to the second and third, led from the start and never looked back despite wavering a bit up the straight when asked to keep her lead.

She led after an opening quarter-mile in a comfortable 23.77secs and extended the margin to two and a half lengths over longshot Miss Imperial at a half-mile.

Ce Ce moved up from third to take a run on the turn but could not keep pace in the final furlong.

Stonestreet Stables’ Clairiere moved into second but she could not get in terms as the winner crossed the wire in 1m42.22secs.

“I used my weapon. I knew Clairiere would be coming late so I used my speed and I was able to hold her off. I felt my filly was in a very nice rhythm. I knew with the way she running the last eighth it would take a super horse to go by her,” Ortiz said.

Letruska is expected to start in the Ogden Phipps Stakes on June 11th next, according to her trainer.

LAST year’s leading three-year-old and Kentucky Oaks winner Shadwell’s Malathaat returned with a win in the Grade 3 Doubledogdare Stakes at Keeneland last Friday.

The Todd Pletcher-trained daughter of Curlin and Dreaming Of Julia was making her first start in more than five months, raced wide in both turns on her first run since a third-place finish in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Distaff in November at Del Mar.

Malathaat scored by three-quarters of a length over last year’s Doubledogdare winner Bonny South.

“Down the lane I went to make her switch her lead and she got lost looking for the field. Then the other horse (Bonny South) got to her and she went on again, so it was very nice. We know when she gets to the lead she starts waiting, so it was a good comeback for her,” Velazquez said.

THE NSA jumps season moved up a gear with some of the better horses in action at the Middleburg Spring Races in Virginia last Saturday.

Keri Brion trained four winners on the card including the feature race, the Grade 2 Temple Gwathmey Sport of King Hurdle Stakes. She trains all the way winner Iranistan who beat the former champion jumps horse Snap Decision and the race’s dual winner Moscato in the two-mile–one-furlong hurdle.

Brion won with two Irish-breds Going Country, a Yeats six-year-old sourced from Balitmore Stables and Kicking Myself, a four-year-old Doyen filly in the mares’ maiden, all were ridden by Parker Henricks.

Sean McDermott trained and rode the maiden claiming hurdle on Whos Counting and Lesley Young trained the final winner, the Irish-bred Bodes Well in a two-mile–five-furlong chase.