Two-time graded stakes winner Hungry
Island tuned up for the July 28 Grade 1, $600,000 Diana with a 48.85
four-furlong breeze on the Oklahoma
training track on Friday.
“She went fine and is doing fine,” said Hall of Fame
trainer Shug McGaughey. “All things being equal, we’ll run next
Saturday.”
Hungry Island, an Emory Hamilton homebred, will enter the
Diana, a 1 1/8-mile turf race for fillies and mares, off a third behind
Tapitsfly and Winter Memories in the one-mile Grade 1 Longines Just a Game on
June 9 at Belmont.
“She broke fine [in the Just a Game], but then [John Velazquez]
had to ride her to get her into the race,” said McGaughey. “You
kind of have got to get her covered up. Nobody was going to beat [Tapitsfly]
that day as fast she ran, but I think stretching [Hungry Island] out is going
to help her. She’s going to be back [in the field], but she’s got
to be back the right way. She had a pretty quick work earlier in the week
[prior to the Just a Game], and maybe that took some of the sting out of her.”
Hungry
Island entered the Longines
Just a Game off a win in the Grade 2 Churchill Downs Distaff Turf Mile on May
5.
McGaughey added that Stuart S. Janney, III’s Hymn Book, the Grade 1 Donn Handicap winner
who was runner-up in the Grade 2 Suburban Handicap on July 7, has been
confirmed for the Grade 1 Whitney Invitational Handicap on August 4 and will
work an “easy half” on Saturday. Point
of Entry, victorious in last Saturday’s Grade 1 Man o’
War at Belmont
for the Phipps Stable, will aim for the Grade 1 Sword Dancer Invitational on
August 18, McGaughey said.