Maximus Mischief’s Irish Maxima goes gate to wire to win Ruffian S. (G2)

Irish Maxima is now a five-time stakes winner after annexing Saturday’s Ruffian S. (G2) at Aqueduct in front-running style.

A 5-year-old daughter of Maximus Mischief, Irish Maxima won last year’s Distaff S. (G3), also at Aqueduct, and a trio of listed races prior to that. Her lifetime record is a stellar 11-1-1 in 18 starts.

Coming into the Ruffian off a pair of allowance wins, Irish Maxima took control of the race immediately, rolling through lively fractions of :22.74 and :45.02. She was up by six lengths around the turn and into the stretch, then held on gamely in the final furlong to best the late-closing Cassiar in 1:36.51 for the mile on a “good” main track.

“She’s got so much speed,” said winning jockey Frankie Pennington. “As soon as she broke from the gate, I tried to grab her pretty quick to get her to relax. As soon as I grabbed her, she was like, ‘I’m going to play with you, I’m going to do what I want to do.’ And she did. I knew they were going to be coming–it was a big group of nice horses–but I know one thing with her, she’ll fight it out until the end.”

Irish Maxima is owned by Irish Three Racing LLC and has now banked $756,318. The bay was bred in Kentucky by Pillar Property Services Inc.

Pedigree Notes from the TDN:

Irish Maxima is one of four graded winners for Spendthrift’s young fourth-crop sire Maximus Mischief. The son of seven-time leading sire Into Mischief is also the sire of 15 black-type winners, including MGISW Raging Torrent, who is currently standing his first season at stud.