Sudden Surprise Tries Two Turns in Gander

With plenty of lucrative route races approaching for 3-year-olds, Repole Stables' Sudden Surprise will try two turns for the first time Feb. 6 in the $100,000 Gander Stakes for New York-bred sophomores at Aqueduct Racetrack.

Facing other New York-breds, Sudden Surprise has won five of his first six starts, including four stakes scores. But the lone loss for the son of Giant Surprise   came at his longest race to date, the one-turn mile Sleepy Hollow Stakes Oct. 15 at Belmont Park, where he finished fourth.

Since that effort Sudden Surprise has registered two stakes wins at Aqueduct for trainer Todd Pletcher—the six-furlong Notebook Stakes on the Aqueduct main track before he closed the year Dec. 27 with a victory in a New York Stallion Series Stakes going the same distance on the inner track.

In preparing for Saturday's mile and 70-yard test, which will be his 3-year-old debut, Sudden Surprise registered four half-mile workouts in January on the Belmont training track.

The expected field of six includes WinStar Farm's Inside Straight, also trained by Pletcher, who enters off a 3 1/4-length win in an allowance/optional claiming race at the Gander distance; Blue Sapphire Farm's stakes-placed Taoiseach; and Vincent Scuderi's Vincento, who tries stakes company for the first time after winning two of his first three starts.