NYRA/Adam Coglianese
Returning to the races at five following an off-the-board finish against the boys in the Grade 3 Fall Highweight Handicap late last November, Lady Sheila Stable’s star sprinter La Verdad successfully defended her Grade 2, $200,000 Distaff Handicap title at Aqueduct on Saturday while making short work of three rivals.
When the race was drawn, La Verdad’s conditioner Linda Rice cautioned that after only four published works “[La Verdad] could end up short,” but Rice also believed her charge was “ready enough to give it a try.” The proof was in the (graded stakes) pudding after La Verdad, bet down to 30 cents on the dollar, won the stakes with decision.
Darting to the front from her outside post under regular rider Jose Ortiz, La Verdad was faced with a single challenge on the backstretch, when Aireofdistinction pulled up even and poked a head in front.
Giving a decisive answer to that challenge, La Verdad stepped up her game and opened up daylight on her pursuer in the far turn. After a first quarter-mile in 22.25, and half in 44.87, La Verdad then drew off to a no-doubt-about-it 5 1/4-length win, stopping the clock after six furlongs in a very sharp 1:10 flat. Frivolity (7-1), last early, closed to finish second, followed across the line by second choice Mamdooha and Aireofdistinction, who bolted on the turn. [VIDEO]
NYRA/Adam Coglianese
Jockey Ortiz reported, “[La Verdad] had a clean break, I went to the rail and [Aireofdistinction] came out to challenge her, but really wasn’t a factor at the turn. I cruised by her at the three-eighths pole, at the quarter-pole I looked back for [second choice Mamdooha].”
Continued Ortiz, “I let [La Verdad] pick up at the three-sixteenths pole, and I only hit her couple of times and she went easy. I just let her do her thing. I have to give credit to Linda and her staff because they work very hard every morning to get her ready and they really deserve this.”
Rice was convinced that La Verdad’s native talent was able overcame any shortness in conditioning, saying, “I wasn’t happy when I saw [Aireofdistinction] coming after her early, and they were going pretty fast. I was a little concerned that was going to make it a real test on her fitness, but her ability is the key. She’s got a lot of talent and is able to overcome that.”
Rice added, “I can only hope that [La Verdad] comes back and races as well as she has the last year and a half for us. I had her in training for quite a long time without a vacation, and after the Fall Highweight I decided to turn her out for a couple months; she deserved it.”
La Verdad has compiled two stellar campaigns for Rice at three and four, putting together two separate four-race win streaks in 2013-2014, broken only by a runner-up finish in the 2014 Barbara Fritchie Handicap in February 2014.
In 2014 La Verdad won six races, led by the Grade 2 Distaff, in addition to victories in four state-bred stakes: the Broadway, Critical Eye, Dancin Renee (for which she earned her first a triple-digit Beyer Speed Figure), and Iroquois. In 2013 La Verdad won four of five starts while going through her state-bred conditions and annexing an open allowance victory. The bay mare’s career record stands at 11 wins and two seconds from 17 career starts (with five wins from six starts on the Aqueduct main track). Having earned $900,700, she is poised to join the “millionaires’ club” this season.
NYRA/Adam Coglianese
Bred by Eklektikos Stable LLC and foaled at Chester and Mary Broman’s Chestertown farm in Chestertown. La Verdad was sold privately to Sheila Rosenblum of Lady Sheila Stable following her second allowance victory in November 2013.
She is one of three winners and two stakes performers out of Noble Fire (Hook and Ladder), a stakes-placed runner bred by Chester and Mary Broman also trained by Rice. Rice bought Noble Fire for Eklektikos for $115,000 at the 2007 OBS Spring sale of 2-year-olds in training.
Noble Fire’s two other winners, also Rice trainees, are also accomplished. Speedy six-year-old gelding N. F’s Destiny (Cuvee) is an eight-time winner of over $335,000 for Dubb et al. Lady Sheila Stable’s six-figure earner Hot City Girl, by City Zip, is stakes-placed.
Noble Fire currently has a yearling May filly by Freud and was not bred in 2014.
