What's Next for It's Tricky?

Darley Stable’s It’s Tricky, impressive winner of the Busher at Aqueduct in February and unraced since a fourth-place effort in the Grade 2 Gulfstream Park Oaks on April 2 turned in a half-mile breeze at Belmont on Sunday morning. Caught by the clockers in 50.05, trainer Kiaran McLaughlin said the daughter of Mineshaft was under consideration for either the Grade 1 Acorn on June 11, or the Grade 1 Mother Goose on June 25.

“Well, it’s tricky,” McLaughlin quipped. “The races are only two weeks apart this year and we have to decide which is a better spot for her. She’s already a stakes winner, but we’d love to be Grade 1 placed, or a Grade 1 winner.”

On the worktab Saturday for McLaughlin was Mill House’s Trappe Shot, winner of his 4-year-old debut in the six-furlong Waldoboro overnight stakes at Belmont on May 11 and pointing for the Grade 2 True North presented by Emirates Airline at the same distance on Belmont Stakes day. The son of Tapit, who last year finished second in the Grade 1 Haskell at Monmouth Park on August 1 before running ninth in the Grade 1 Travers at Saratoga Race Course later in the month, was clocked for a half-mile in 49.93.

“He worked well yesterday, he’ll have one more work next week and he should be ready to go,” McLaughlin said.

The trainer added that turf runner Riviera Cocktail, most recently fifth in the Grade 3 Fort Marcy on May 7, would likely run next in the Grade 3 Poker, one mile over the Belmont grass on June 10. The 5-year-old son of Giant’s Causeway worked five-eighths (1:03.11) on the turf Sunday morning.