Sand Devil storms into $125K Damon Runyon
At 0h03, on February 8, 2025 • By Aqueduct
Chester Broman, Sr.’s unbeaten homebred Sand Devil is set for his stakes debut in Saturday’s $125,000 Damon Runyon, a seven-furlong sprint for New York-bred sophomores, at Aqueduct Racetrack.
Trained by Linda Rice, the Violence chestnut is not only 2-for-2, but also dominant in both efforts, most recently cruising to a 12 1/2-length romp in a one-turn mile optional claimer versus fellow state-breds on January 2 here.
“He ran super that day, we were very pleased with him,” said Rice. “I just wanted to get him stretched out from the six furlongs to one mile, and now we will just keep on trying to graduate him.”
The big win over recent Listed Withers-contestant Corvus earned a field-best 90 Beyer Speed Figure, improving upon an encouraging 82 on debut when a stalking four-length victor sprinting six furlongs in a state-bred December maiden.
Rice considered Sand Devil [post 2, Jose Lezcano] for the nine-furlong Listed Withers, a 20-10-6-4-2 Kentucky Derby qualifying points event on February 1 here, but ultimately decided to keep him with fellow state-breds and around one turn.
“Frankly, we just wanted to take a nice, easy progression with him,” Rice said. “He is a nice horse. We know that. He has talent. We just want to ease him up to bigger and better things.
“It’s a slight cutback, but he’ll be fine at this distance,” Rice continued. “He’ll probably sit off of it, and hopefully run them down.”
Bred by Chester and Mary Broman, Sand Devil is out of multiple stakes-winning Mineshaft mare Mineralogist. His second dam is the graded stakes-winning New York-bred Seeking the Ante, who NYRA named a stakes after.
