![\"Didia](\"https:\/\/belmontstakesbettingsites.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Didia_McKulick.jpg\" "\\"Didia")
\nLast year’s New York Stakes second and third, Didia and McKulick, meet again in the $750,000 Grade I race seeking victory. Moved temporarily away from its traditional home of Belmont Park, like the rest of the Belmont Stakes Racing Festival, there’s a slight shortening of the event distance.<\/strong><\/p>\n Normally contested over 2,000m (10 furlongs or a mile-and-a-quarter), the meet switching upstate to Saratoga means changes. The New York Stakes is on the Mellon course, one of two turf tracks on the inner of the dirt at this venue. That means its distance is 1,900m (9.5 furlongs).<\/p>\n Still part of the Belmont Stakes schedule<\/a> for the day before the final leg of the Triple Crown, a field of 13 older fillies and mares run on Friday, June 7. Chief among those are the two who made the show but didn’t win at Belmont Park 12 months ago.<\/p>\n Both of these five-year-old mares have won more than once since.\u00a0Didia\u00a0<\/strong>has a landed a couple of Grade II races on either coast of America. After victory in the Rodeo Drive Stakes at Santa Anita, she also delivered this winter in the valuable Pegasus World Cup Filly & Mare Turf Invitational around Gulfstream Park under new jockey Jose Ortiz.<\/p>\n Didia has since run third in the Grade I Jenny Wiley at Keeneland behind Godolphin’s transatlantic raider English Rose. Effective over the extended mile up to a mile-and-a-quarter, Ignacio Correas’ daughter of Orpen is a leading contender for the New York Stakes again.<\/p>\n Unlike last year, however, Didia doesn’t receive weight from old rival\u00a0McKulick<\/strong>. The pair now meet off level terms and that gives Chad Brown’s 2023 third every chance of turning the form about. McKulick seems at her best over a longer distance, so shortening this race isn’t a plus.<\/p>\n As she’s by Frankel, greater tests of stamina seem more suitable. Much like in the Just A Game Stakes<\/a>, however, this local barn has a superb recent record in the New York Stakes with four wins in the last six years.<\/p>\n McKulick has two wins over a mile-and-half including here in the Grade II Glens Falls. She placed in the 2022 Saratoga Oaks over course and distance after landing the Belmont Park equivalent. McKulick will have to prove her effectiveness down in trip, however, after finishing fourth at Aqueduct when last in action.<\/p>\nMcKulick Better off at Weights with Didia<\/h2>\n
More to Come from English Rose in New York Stakes<\/h2>\n