Joe Shields’ homebred Any Limit makes her first start after not faring too well on the Keeneland Polytrack, one of nine fillies and mares running in the Top Flight Handicap (gr. II) Nov. 28 at Aqueduct.
The $150,000 race for fillies and mares ages three and up will be run at a mile on the dirt.
The 5-year-old Limit Out mare won two straight graded stakes this summer, the First Flight Handicap (gr. II) at Belmont Park and the Honorable Miss Handicap (gr. II) at Saratoga. Eight weeks later, she contested the Thoroughbred Club of America Stakes (gr. III) at Keeneland and ran a dull sixth.
Trained by Allen Jerkens, the five-time stakes winner will be ridden by Cornelio Velasquez and break from the two post. She will carry co-highweight of 119 pounds along with Leah’s Secret, who will break from the rail under Eibar Coa. It will be Coa's first mount on the mare.
Leah’s Secret, a 5-year-old mare by Tiger Ridge owned by WinStar Farm, enters the Top Flight off a win at Churchill Downs in the Nov. 2 Chilukki Stakes (gr. II). Prior to that, Leah’s Secret competed in a pair of grade I contests in New York, running fourth in both the Beldame and Ballerina Stakes.
Trained by Todd Pletcher, Leah’s Secret, also a winner of five stakes, may benefit from the abundance of speed in the field, having shown she can sit just off the pace.
Jerkens will send out two in the race, also saddling So Glitzy, while another trainer with a pair of entrants is Shug McGaughey, who will saddle Altesse and Boca Grande.
Altesse, by A.P. Indy, is owned by Helen Alexander in partnership with her mother Helen Groves and her sister Dorothy Matz. Altesse, who will break from post five under Ramon Dominguez, has won stakes in her last two starts at Belmont, the Turnback the Alarm Handicap (gr. III) and Quick Mischief Stakes.
The complete field, in post order:
Leah’s Secret, 119, Eibar Coa
Any Limit, 119, Cornelio Velasquez
Weathered, 114, Mike Luzzi
Slewfoundmoney, 115, Eddie Castro
Altesse, 118, Ramon Dominguez
Shining Image, 113, Edgar Prado
Boca Grande, 115, Rajiv Maragh
So Glitzy, 114, Jeffrey Sanchez
Rite Moment, 115, Pablo Morales
