Busher winner It’s Tricky has rejoined trainer Kiaran
McLaughlin’s Belmont barn following a fourth-place effort behind R Heat
Lightning in the Gulfstream Park Oaks on April 2.
“She got back about 10 days ago,” Artie Magnuson,
McLaughlin’s New York
assistant said of the Darley Stable trainee. “She got beat by a really tough
filly in R Heat Lightning, but she’s fine, she shipped up well, and we’ll
regroup.”
It’s Tricky was undefeated going into the Gulfstream Park
Oaks – a race in which R Heat Lightning romped by 8 ¼ lengths – having broken
her maiden and taken an optional claimer at Aqueduct en route to the February 5
Busher.
“We’re talking now about what’s next for her, but we’re not
sure yet,” Magnuson added.
McLaughlin and Darley teamed up for a win on Friday as Hockley
returned from a seven-month layoff to take a second-level optional claimer on
the Aqueduct turf.
A 4-year-old son of A.P. Indy, Hockley began his career with
trainer Eoin Harty, picking up a pair of runner-up finishes on the all-weather
surface at Arlington Park and the main track at Saratoga in the summer of 2009. In the
latter, he was beaten by Dublin, who would take the Grade 1 Champagne in his
next start, and was followed under the wire by Eightyfiveinafifty and
Discreetly Mine, both of whom also went on to become graded stakes winners.
Hockley turned to the turf as a sophomore, breaking his
maiden on the grass at Santa Anita in March 2010 and earning an allowance
optional claiming victory at Hollywood
Park before going to the sidelines
following a disappointing sixth in the Oceanside Stakes at Hollywood on July 21. He joined McLaughlin’s
barn at Palm Meadows this winter and Magnuson said the colt could eventually
return to the dirt.
“We might try it again at some point. He trains well on it
and he has some good back races on the dirt,” Magnuson noted. “We don’t want to
get too smart, because we know he likes turf, but it’s a possibility.”