Sunday Girl bids to defend Hettinger in Aqueduct's final stakes race

Sunday Girl will run in the $150,000 John Hettinger Stakes on the June 28 card at Aqueduct, the track’s final live-racing program. The six-furlong outer-turf sprint for New York-bred fillies and mares is the closing stakes race of the meet.

Aqueduct first opened to the public on Sept. 27, 1894, and New York Racing Association will keep the plant open only for simulcasting until operations shift fully to Belmont Park and Saratoga Race Course. NYRA’s new Belmont Park is scheduled to open Sept. 18, 2026, which will complete the consolidation.

Sunday Girl is the horse to beat. The 5-year-old Central Banker mare, trained by David Duggan, won this race last year by going straight to the front under Katie Davis and holding off Silver Skillet by 2 1/4 lengths in 1:07.76. She has not needed turf to define her career, either. Sunday Girl won the NYSSS Park Avenue and the Correction on dirt, and she put together four straight victories at one point in 2024.

The turf has not been her most common surface, but Duggan has put her back in a spot where speed can matter. A prior turf effort at Saratoga Race Course looked like an outlier to the stable, not a reason to lower expectations, and her recent bullet works have been part of her preparation.

The John Hettinger Stakes was established in 2009 at Belmont Park in honor of former NYRA board member John Hettinger, whose legacy also continues through Akindale Thoroughbred Aftercare, founded by Hettinger in 2006 on his farm in Pawling, New York.