Where’s My Ring win the Gazelle (Joe Labozzetta)
NYRA Press Office
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y.— Michael McMillan’s Grade 3 Gazelle-winner Where’s My Ring is on the grounds at Saratoga Race Course to prepare for a start in the nine-furlong Grade 1, $500,000 DK Horse Acorn for sophomore fillies on Friday, June 7 on Day Two of the Belmont Stakes Racing Festival.
Where’s My Ring endured a troubled off-the-board effort after exiting post 2-of-14 under Jose Lezcano in the Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks on May 3 at Churchill Downs where she was hampered by a retreating rival at the three-eighths and had to scurry through a tight opening on the rail.
“We got a bad start in the Oaks. She just got rolling in the final turn and she got wiped out at the five-sixteenths pole,” trainer Val Brinkerhoff said. “She was coming good and then a horse jumped to the inside and t-boned her and that was it.”
The Twirling Candy bay has worked back twice at Churchill Downs and is now onsite at Saratoga where she will breeze once more as a final tune-up for the DK Horse Acorn.
“She’s doing really well,” Brinkerhoff said. “I worked her here at Churchill a couple times and I sent her up there to get used to the track.”
Brinkerhoff said Tyler Gaffalione will pilot Where’s My Ring at the Belmont Stakes Racing Festival.
Where’s My Ring, a $100,000 Keeneland September Yearling Sale purchase, boasts a record of 9-1-3-1 for purse earnings of $217,620. She graduated in style with Lezcano up in the nine-furlong Grade 3 Gazelle on April 6 at Aqueduct Racetrack, besting eventual Kentucky Oaks-third place finisher Regulatory Risk by 4 1/4-lengths.
“We got a good trip that day. She broke well and I got a really good ride from the rider,” Brinkerhoff said. “I told him to sit on her until they got to the five-sixteenths pole and then start moving her. He backed her out and came around and she won easy.”
The talented bay twice tried graded company as a 2-year-old maiden at Santa Anita Park, finishing a rallying fourth after a bobbled start in the Grade 3 Surfer Girl over one-mile of firm turf in October. She followed with a distant eighth in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies one month later.
Where’s My Ring, who overcame a bout of colic last summer, has shown improvement since adding blinkers four starts back when second in a one-mile maiden tilt won by Ultimate Authority in February at Santa Anita. She returned to finish second to Kinza in the 1 1/16-mile Grade 3 Santa Ysabel in March at Santa Anita with Ultimate Authority settling for fourth.
Where’s My Ring is out of the winning Tapit mare Mapit, who is a half-sister to stakes-winner Merlazza.
