Champion Letruska Returns in Saturday’s Royal Delta
At 0h21, on February 25, 2022 • By GULFSTREAM
St. George Stable LLC’s Letruska is scheduled to make her 2022 debut in Saturday’s $150,000 Royal Delta (G3) at Gulfstream Park, where the Eclipse Award champion made an eye-opening U.S. debut a little over two years ago.
The Royal Delta, a 1 1/16-mile stakes for older fillies and mares, will headline Saturday’s 12-race program at Gulfstream Park.
Undefeated in her first six career starts while establishing dominance in Mexico, Letruska made it abundantly clear in the Copa Invitacional del Caribe at Gulfstream Park on Dec. 8, 2019 that she had a future in the U.S.
“I knew that she was a racehorse, when I saw the way she ran in Mexico, I said, ‘This horse has the capacity to do something special,’” trainer Fausto Gutierrez said. “But I never imagined something like this.”
Letruska defeated males by 4 ¼ lengths in the 1 ¼-mile stakes on the Classico del Caribe program for horses representing Latin American and the Caribbean. Sixteen races and eight graded stakes (four Grade 1 stakes) victories later, the 6-year-old daughter of Super Saver enters the Royal Delta as North America’s older dirt female champion.
“It is very important. This is a horse that took all the steps to a championship. She came from a foreign country and arrived here. She took it step by step and finally last year she won six graded races, four Grade 1,” Gutierrez said. “She’s a great horse.”
Jose Ortiz has the mount aboard Letruska, who is 2-for-2 aboard the homebred mare with whom he teamed for victories in the Ogden Phipps and Fleur de Lis.
