BY STEVE KOCH
Florida-bred Ultimate Love returns Sunday in the $150,000 Memories of Silver Stakes at Aqueduct. The one-mile turf test for 3-year-old fillies drew nine for the grass and two for the main track only.
Ultimate Love is a homebred for Charlotte Weber’s Live Oak Plantation. By Curlin out of the Bernardini mare Tsunami of Love, she won three of four starts as a 2-year-old, all on grass, banking $176,400.
She broke her maiden at Colonial Downs in July by two-and-three-quarters lengths, annexed a first condition $62,500 optional claiming at Laurel on September 5 by nearly seven lengths and captured the $125,000 Selima Stakes at Laurel by four lengths on September 27.
She closed her juvenile season with a competitive fifth as the 7-2 favorite in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf at Del Mar on October 31, beaten two-and-a-half lengths by winner Balantine (Ire).
Ultimate Love drilled four furlongs in :48.80 on the Fair Hill synthetic on April 18, third-fastest of 21 works at the distance.
Hall of Fame jockey John Velazquez, her captain in the Breeders’ Cup, has the return call for trainer Michael J. Trombetta. Ultimate Love is the 2-1 morning line favorite.
Godolphin homebred Quiet Street, an earner of $665,475, captured the $996,000 Untapable at Kentucky Downs and ran third in the Grade 2 Miss Grillo as a juvenile. She returns from a well-beaten eighth in Keeneland’s Grade 3 Limestone Stakes on April 10.
Trainer Bill Mott will give a leg up on Quiet Street to Jose Lezcano and they are 4-1 on the morning line.
The Memories of Silver doubles as a U.S. introduction for Piper’s Gift, trained by Dale Desruisseaux, who finished third in voting for Canada’s Champion 2-Year-Old Female Sovereign Award, announced Thursday night at the 51st Annual Sovereign Awards ceremony in Woodbridge, Ontario. Her owner-breeder, Chiefswood Stables Limited, took home both the Outstanding Owner and Outstanding Breeder Sovereigns for 2025.
Chiefswood’s Ontario-bred ran the table in her final three starts up north. She broke her maiden sprinting at Woodbine in August, stretched out to take the $143,000 Glorious Song Stakes at seven furlongs on Oct 12, then crushed the $250,000 Princess Elizabeth Stakes on Nov 29 as the 2-5 favorite.
Kendrick Carmouche will ride Piper’s Gift from post seven and is 6-1 in the program.
Filling out the entries are Y’allreadyforthis and jockey Edgard Zayas, Full of Tact will be ridden by Jorge A. Vargas Jr., Fitz Right has Flavien Prat named to ride, Ricardo Santana Jr. has the call on Smexy (Ire), Imperatrice will have Manny Franco up and Shaun Bridgmohan will guide Oscar Bound. Hot Gossip and Point of Reference are entered under main-track-only conditions.
Return to the April 24 issue of Wire to Wire