Strategy Key in Four-Horse Distaff Handicap

Either the trainers of filly and mare sprinters in New York are intimidated by Mamdooha’s impressive winning streak or La Verdad’s blazing early speed or there simply aren’t enough filly and mare sprinters in New York worthy of running the $200,000 Distaff Handicap (gr. II) at Aqueduct Racetrack April 18, where just four were entered.

(You knew the six-furlong race drew a miniscule field when it was carded as the second race.}

Mamdooha, a Shadwell Stable homebred trained by Kiaran McLaughlin, enters the Distaff off four consecutive stakes victories and five straight wins altogether. But as good as Mamdooha’s record is, there isn’t much separating her from Aireofdistinction, who finished third, two heads behind Mamdooha, in the March 14 Correction Stakes.

Mamdooha, a daughter of Daaher  , also has victories in the Cicada and Ruthless Stakes at Aqueduct, and the Gin Talking Stakes at Laurel Race Course, while Aireofdistinction was second in the Interborough Stakes. Before being turned over to trainer David Jacobson, she captured the Open Mind Stakes at Churchill Downs last September for Steve Asmussen. The Distaff will be her second start wearing blinkers.

As formidable as Mamdooha and Aireofdistinction look, it is a four-horse field, and they are both fillies who come from off the pace. There is a dangerous speed horse in the Linda Rice-trained New York-bred La Verdad, who won this race last year by four lengths after leading every step.

The daughter of Yes It's True   hasn’t run since a poor showing against the boys in the Fall Highweight Handicap (gr. III) Nov. 27. But prior to that, she scored an impressive wire-to-wire victory in the Iroquois Stakes for state-breds and was beaten a head in the grade II Gallant Bloom Handicap after leading all the way and opening a four-length lead at the eighth pole.

This figures to be a jockey’s race, as Irad Ortiz Jr., on Mamdooha, and Junior Alvarado, on Aireofdistinction, will have to watch each other while keeping in fairly close contact with La Verdad, with Jose Ortiz aboard, and not letting her too comfortable a lead.

The fourth horse in the Distaff. Frivolity, also is trained by Jacobson, who claimed the daughter of Corinthian   for $62,500 last May. After dropping her down for $35,000 in November, he has run her in three straight allowance/optional claimers, where she has a win, a second, and a third.