Well-bred Sherini tries stakes

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – The extremely well-bred Sherini will try to join a long list of stakes-winning siblings when she runs in Sunday’s $100,000 Ladies Stakes at Aqueduct. This will be the 147th running of the Ladies, first contested in 1868.

Sherini, owned and bred by Len Riggio’s My Meadowview Farm, is a 5-year-old daughter of Bernardini out of the Unbridled mare Oatsee, who has produced Grade 1 winners Shackleford and Lady Joanne as well as graded stakes winners Afleeting Lady and Baghdaria.

Sherini is only 2 for 7 in her career and is coming off a first-level allowance win at Laurel on Dec. 2. That was her first start off a 15-month layoff precipitated by ankle issues.

“It took us a little longer to get her back to the races,” trainer Graham Motion said. “This will tell us whether we go on for the rest of the year or if she will be bred.”

Motion spoke by phone on Thursday from Fair Hill, Md., where Sherini had just worked five furlongs in 1:03 over the Tapeta surface at that training facility.

“It’s a little closer than I normally would have done it, but we didn’t have a track yesterday and last week everything got messed up” due to weather, Motion said.

Sherini was one of seven fillies and mares entered in the Ladies, scheduled for 1 1/8 miles. Trainer Linda Rice entered both Crimson Frost and Just Got Out. Also entered was Inconclusive, who on Monday ran fourth in the Interborough at odds of 125-1.

The Ladies field, from the rail out, is Majestic Angel, Just Got Out, Inconclusive, Crimson Frost, Sherini, Girl Talk, and Bombshell.

Actress, the Grade 3 Comely winner, was held out of the Ladies and will run next in either the Grade 3, $400,000 Houston Ladies Classic at Sam Houston on Jan. 28 or the Grade 3, $150,000 Bayakoa Handicap at Oaklawn on Feb. 17, trainer Jason Servis said.

The Ladies will share billing on Sunday’s card with the $100,000 Alex M. Robb Stakes for New York-breds. After twice being canceled due to bad weather and then twice failing to draw enough entries to be carded, the Robb drew a field of six for Sunday. Control Group, winner of the Grade 3 Discovery for 3-year-olds on Nov. 25, heads the field.

The Robb field, from the rail out, is: Papa Shot, Can You Diggit, Testosterstone, Extinct Charm, Control Group, and Wake Up in Malibu.

Divine Miss Grey to Fritchie

Divine Miss Grey, dominant winner of Monday’s $100,000 Interborough Stakes at Aqueduct, will point to the Grade 2, $300,000 Barbara Fritchie Handicap at Laurel Park on Feb. 17, trainer Danny Gargan said Thursday.

Gargan said Divine Miss Grey came out of the Interborough “great” and he sees no need to stop on her now that she’s in such good form. Divine Miss Grey won the Interborough by 3 1/4 lengths a month after she won an allowance race here by 3 3/4 lengths.

“As long as she keeps winning, we’re going to run her,” Gargan said. “Maybe she likes the cold weather. She was a bleeder when I claimed her but she seems to have gotten over that.”

Divine Miss Grey earned a 93 Beyer Speed Figure for the Interborough victory, her first in a stakes race.

Busanda fails to fill

The $100,000 Busanda Stakes for 3-year-old fillies, a race that offered qualifying points to the May 4 Kentucky Oaks, drew only four entrants and was not carded for Sunday as scheduled.

Andrew Byrnes, the stakes coordinator for the New York Racing Association, said the 1 1/8-mile race will be put up again for Thursday and entries will be taken on Sunday.

Five of the nine fillies nominated to the Busanda are also nominated to the Ruthless, a seven-furlong race for 3-yearold fillies scheduled for Jan. 28.