Hit it Rich will make her final start in the Long Island Handicap at Aqueduct
The last graded turf stakes of the year in New York is the Grade 3, $150,000 Long Island Handicap to be run over a distance of 1 ½ miles at Aqueduct race track on 10 November, 2012.
The grade 3 event has reeled in nine, 3-year-old and above fillies and mares, and among them will be Stuart S. Janney III homebred 5-year-old mare, Hit it Rich, who will be making her final career start at Aqueduct race track.
Shug McGaughey trained, Hit it Rich, won her first ever graded stakes race in last year’s Long Island Handicap, when she downed Mekong Melody in second and Musical Rain in third to win the 1 ½ mile event in 2 minutes and 30.39 seconds under Javier Castellano.
Since then, the Smart Strike mare has consistently participated in graded stakes events, and 5 starts out of 6, she never finished worse than third until her recent start, where she finished a tiring seventh in the Grade 1 Flower Bowl Stakes at Belmont Park over 1 ¼ miles.
In the Long Island Handicap, Hit it Rich will be the 119 pound highweight, and she will have her work cut out against the likes of Mystical Star, who will be carrying 118 pounds, Kissable and Starformer will be carrying equal weight of 117 pounds.
Hit it Rich will have to look out for her, if she needs to close her career on a high.
“She’s going to be up in the [Long Island], maybe on the lead, going that far,” assistant trainer Buzz Tenney said. “She’ll have control of the race, I think. We’ll see if she can get the trip. I think she can; she did it last year. She worked a half on Monday [in 50.03 seconds], which is her kind of work, and galloped out good.”
Trainer Christophe Clement, who has won the Long Island Handicap twice in his career, will look to win it for the third time with, Mystical Star, who is currently exiting a second place finish in the Grade 1 Spinster Stakes under jockey Ramon Dominguez.
“Mystical Star is doing very well, and she came back from the Spinster very well,” Clement said.”
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