Mary Eddy/NYRA Press Office
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Storyteller Racing and Michael Schroeck’s dual graded stakes-placed Liam in the Dust will cut back by one furlong for Saturday’s Listed $200,000 Busher, a one-turn mile for sophomore fillies, at Aqueduct Racetrack.
The Busher, which awards 50-25-15-10-5 Kentucky Oaks qualifying points to the top-five finishers, is slated as Race 7 on Saturday’s lucrative Grade 3, $300,000 Gotham card. The 10-race card features the one-turn mile Gotham [Race 8] for sophomores that awards the top-five finishers 50-25-15-10-5 qualifying points towards the Grade 1 Kentucky Derby. Also featured are the Grade 3, $175,000 Tom Fool in Race 4 and the Listed $150,000 Stymie, in Race 6. First post is 12:40 p.m. Eastern.
Trained by Rodolphe Brisset, Liam in the Dust enters off a short freshening she received this winter on the heels of a prominent third-place effort in the nine-furlong Grade 2 Demoiselle on December 7 here, earning three Kentucky Oaks points in defeat.
“We gave her three weeks of walking and a couple weeks of jogging before we got back breezing,” Brisset explained. “Even with the weather back home [in Kentucky], we were able to get a pretty good number of breezes in her. I’m not too worried coming back at a mile coming off the small layoff based on the fact she had plenty of races last year. She’s pretty easy going and she has run there already, so this feels like the right spot to come back and the right timing.”
In the Demoiselle, Liam in the Dust pressed the pace set by the well-regarded Brad Cox trainee Muhimma and was three-wide heading into the turn as she backpedaled from the runaway pacesetter. The Chad Brown-trained Ballerina d’Oro rallied from last to pass Liam in the Dust in the lane, and the latter kept on through the wire to preserve show honors 7 3/4 lengths back of the victorious Muhimma, who returned to be 3rd in the Grade 3 Honeybee at Oaklawn Park.
“She’s never quit on us and I think she’s got talent – she’s Grade 2, Grade 3-placed,” Brisset said. “When Chad’s filly went by us, I thought we were going to finish a bad fourth. She kind of stayed there, but the mile and an eighth was definitely too much for her. I’m happy with the fact that we’re coming back at a mile.”
The Liam’s Map chestnut now cuts back to the distance and configuration that saw her finish a three-quarter-length second to La Cara in the Grade 3 Pocahontas in September at Churchill Downs, her first effort against winners off a debut 2 1/4-length graduation sprinting seven furlongs in August at Ellis Park. She went on to finish a well-beaten seventh behind the Cox-trained subsequent Champion 2-Year-Old Filly Immersive in the Grade 1 Alcibiades going a two-turn 1 1/16 miles in October at Keeneland, but improved to finish second to Muhimma in a November optional claimer at Churchill when cut back to seven furlongs.
Brisset said the Busher’s status as a Kentucky Oaks prep did not influence his decision to make it the filly’s seasonal debut. Liam in the Dust currently has eight Kentucky Oaks points.
“We’ve faced two of the three best fillies Brad [Cox] has between Immersive and Muhimma, and we kind of threw her under the bus a couple of times,” Brisset said. “I think we’re going to approach it where we aren’t going to force anything with the Oaks trail. We’ll do right by her.”
In addition to a return to one turn, the Busher will mark Liam in the Dust’s first start with blinkers. She has breezed twice with the equipment added, the first a five-furlong move in 1:01.80 on February 7 over the Keeneland dirt in company with the maiden Nantucket, who finished a game third on debut on Saturday at Turfway Park. She wore them again Sunday in a bullet half-mile breeze in 48 seconds flat over the same surface in company with multiple stakes-winner B G Warrior.
“We worked her two weeks ago on the dirt at Keeneland and she worked five eighths really good with the blinkers in company with a maiden horse for WinStar,” Brisset said. “That was good, and then we put the blinkers back on her this morning and she breezed with B G Warrior – they really worked good together. We are happy with what we see.
“We put on blinkers just because we feel like she needs to maybe be a bit more confident in her run,” Brisset continued. “Sometimes in the middle of the turn, it looks like she’s beat and then she kind of stays on. We just want to see. She’s done everything we ask of her, but I think cutting back to one turn, the blinkers may be able to keep her position up there.”
Liam in the Dust was a $250,000 purchase at the 2024 OBS March Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training and is out of the unraced Bernardini mare Whisper Louise. She boasts total purse earnings of $161,355 through a record of 5-1-2-1.
Luan Machado, who was aboard for the November optional claiming effort, rides from the inside post.
Bran Jam Stable and David Clark’s Volleyballprincess [post 4, Eliseo Ruiz] seeks back-to-back stakes scores after a 10-length trouncing of the local seven-furlong Ruthless on February 1 here for trainer Louis Linder, Jr.
Guided by regular pilot Eliseo Ruiz, the North Carolina-bred daughter of Mo Town showed pacesetting tactics for the first time in her third career start and assumed command in the early stages. She widened her advantage at every point of call to draw off with ease and complete the course in 1:25.12, earning a career-best 77 Beyer Speed Figure in victory – the same number Liam in the Dust received for the Demoiselle effort.
Linder, Jr. said he was pleased to see the bay make the early lead for the first time after stalking the pace to win in her 6 1/2-furlong debut in October at Parx Racing.
“She has tactical speed. I always thought she would be a horse with speed, but she hadn’t really shown that kind of speed,” Linder, Jr. said. “When she stepped out there and took the lead, I knew we were married to that race on the front end, and she handled it just fine.
“I thought she’d be a sprinter, but a mile looks like something she would get,” Linder, Jr. added. “We’ll take it one race at a time, but she showed us more speed and more distance.”
Volleyballprincess has worked once since the Ruthless, covering five furlongs in 58.71 on Thursday at Parx. The $17,000 OBS March Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training purchase is out of the winning Stephen Got Even mare Prom Dress, a half-sister to dual stakes-placed Mariakel.
Green Lantern Stables’ Kentucky homebred Amarth [post 5, Kendrick Carmouche] looks to make amends for an off-the-board finish in the one-mile and 70-yard Untapable on December 21 at Fair Grounds Race Course.
Trained by Eddie Kenneally, the dark bay McKinzie filly put together back-to-back wins in Kentucky this fall with a second-out graduation sprinting about seven furlongs in October at Keeneland and a 1 1/16-mile optional claiming coup in November at Churchill. In the Untapable, she stalked the pace 2 1/2 lengths back in fourth and attempted to advance into the stretch, but was shut off and steadied to finish sixth.
What a finish!
— TwinSpires Racing (@TwinSpires) November 15, 2024
#3 Amarth gets the job done in R7 at @churchilldowns for trainer Eddie Kenneally, giving @tyler_gaff another win today!
#TwinSpiresReplay pic.twitter.com/1nGPmO2Iu4
“She didn’t have a great trip. It wasn’t an ideal trip, and it was her first time against stakes company,” Kenneally said. “It wasn’t a bad effort, she came back great from it and has trained really well since then. We gave her a little freshening after that and now she is ready to get back to the races.”
Amarth enters off a sharp breeze in company with Grade 3 Gotham aspirant Normandy Coast on Saturday at Fair Grounds, the pair covering a half-mile in 49 flat.
“It went well. I’m happy with them both. They went great. She’s a nice filly, back to one turn, which I don’t think is a problem for her,” Kenneally said. “She broke her maiden at one turn, she did win an allowance at a mile and a sixteenth around two turns, but I don’t think the one turn is a problem for her.”
Legion Racing’s Drexel Hill [post 3, Ben Curtis, blinkers OFF] finished fifth three-quarter-lengths ahead of Amarth in the Untapable, and went on to post a prominent third-place finish in the Silverbulletday over the same course and distance on January 18 behind stablemate Simply Joking.
Trained by Whit Beckman, the Bolt d’Oro dark bay earned a field-best 82 Beyer for the pace-pressing effort in what was her second career start over dirt. She made four starts on the Woodbine Tapeta – including a fourth-out graduation sprinting seven furlongs in November – when in the care of trainer Barbara Minshall before moving to Beckman for the Untapable.
Drexel Hill was a $50,000 purchase at the 2023 Keeneland September Yearling Sale and is out of the winning Daaher mare Ascot Walk.
Completing the field are stakes-placed Fortuna Mia [post 6, Eric Cancel] for trainer Linda Rice and the Brad Cox-trained Sharp Smile [post 9, Manny Franco]; two-time winner Nilo’s Rose [post 7, Sofia Vives] for trainer Robert Falcone, Jr.; and maiden-winners Ramify [post 2, Javier Castellano] for five-time Eclipse Award-winning trainer Chad Brown and She’s Fascinating [post 8, Jose Lezcano] for conditioner Anthony Dutrow.
