The Ladies Stakes Saturday at Aqueduct features a field of five in the distaff division, with three of the group entering the race following wins in their most recent races. Three of those four are graded stakes winners, led by recent Grade 3 Go For Wand Stakes winner Tizzy in the Sky. Julia Shining won the Grade 2 Demoiselle Stakes in the fall of 2022 and is back in top form with a win last month following six months away from the races. Comparative won the Grade 3 Bayakoa Stakes last February but has been uncompetitive in three starts since, including finishing fifth behind Tizzy in the Sky in the Go For Wand last month. Evidencias won the Turnback the Alarm Stakes in November and appears to fit well in this group. Just Music completes the field, with a record of three wins and seven runner-up finishes in 16 races. She is making her first start in a stakes race.

Main win contenders:

Tizzy in the Sky loves running on dirt at Aqueduct, where she has won five times in eight races. More importantly, at the 1 1/8-mile distance of the Ladies Stakes, Tizzy in the Sky has three wins and one second-place finish in four races. The most representative of those efforts came in the nearly identical Turnback the Alarm Stakes in November of 2023 and in the Top Flight Invitational Stakes last April. In the Turnback the Alarm, Tizzy in the Sky led from the start and was beaten just a neck at the finish, earning a career best 107 Equibase Speed Figure in the process. In the Top Flight, Tizzy in the Sky won by nine lengths after leading from start to finish in a field of five under jockey Kendrick Carmouche, who rides her in the Ladies Stakes. After that victory, Tizzy in the Sky ran in the Grade 1 Ogden Phipps Stakes, where she was not only overmatched but broke through the starting gate before the race. Then after being reloaded, she lunged at the gate as the race started and broke on top, but was no match for two of the best females in the division in Randomized and Idiomatic. After a break of six months, Tizzy in the Sky returned to the races in the one-mile Go for Wand Stakes, where she stalked the pacesetter in second for the first-half mile and then took over to win more easily than the half-length margin suggests. The 102 figure she earned is very likely to be improved upon markedly in her second start off the extended layoff. She drew the rail in the Ladies Stakes, and it is highly likely Carmouche will allow Tizzy in the Sky to use her natural early speed and get the lead from the start, where she should be able to successfully play “come catch me” with the rest of the field en route to her sixth career win.

Julia Shining was very highly regarded when debuting in the fall of 2022, being a daughter of champion Dreaming of Julia. She did not disappoint her backers when she easily won her first start, nor did she in her second start in December of that year when she took the Demoiselle Stakes at Aqueduct at the distance of the Ladies Stakes. Things did not go as planned after that, as Julia Shining lost seven in a row through this past May, although she was defeated by just a nose on the wire in the Comely Stakes in the fall of 2023, earning a then career-best 102 figure. Following a poor fourth-place effort in May of this year, Julia Shining was given six months off. Returning at the same one-mile trip on Aqueduct’s track as Tizzy in the Sky ran in the Go For Wand six days later, Julia Shining earned a career-best 103 figure when she impressively won an allowance optional claiming race. That puts her on a pattern to run as well as Tizzy in the Sky in Saturday’s field provided she can stay in range of that probable early leader and close in the stretch as she did last month when going from 1 ½ lengths back with an eighth of a mile to run to 3 ¼ lengths ahead at the finish.

The rest of the field, with their best Equibase Speed Figures, is Comparative (103), Evidencias (95) and Just Music (91).

Win Contenders:

Tizzy in the Sky

Julia Shining