If you’re going to bet on today’s $250,000 Ballerina Stakes (G1) at Saratoga, you’d better make an Informed Decision, and that means giving strong consideration to Florida-bred Jessica Is Back.
Jessica Is Back, a 6-year-old mare by Get Away Farm stallion Double Honor, is the 7-2 second choice on the morning line for the Ballerina and will face 5-2 favorite Informed Decision, who won an Eclipse Award as the top female sprinter of 2009. Jessica Is Back enters the race off the biggest win of her career, a two-length score in Calder’s lone Grade 1 event, last month’s Princess Rooney Handicap.
Bred by Tamarac’s Larry Perkins, Jessica Is Back has won 12 of her 44 starts and $771,765, making her the second-richest horse in the Ballerina’s field of eight fillies and mares. She’s won going around two turns, including a victory in the $72,000 Nancy’s Glitter Handicap going 1 1/16 miles at Calder last summer, but she returned to sprinting for the six-furlong Princess Rooney.
Jessica Is Back has been a part of the trifecta in eight straight races, including a win against Florida-breds in the $75,000 Ocala Stakes at Gulfstream Park in March. The mare, trained by Marty Wolfson for Farnsworth Stables, drew the No. 3 post and will have Elvis Trujillo aboard.
Starting next to her in post No. 4 will be Informed Decision, who easily leads the field with $1.95 million in earnings for trainer Jonathan Sheppard and owner Augustin Stables. She has seven wins in 10 starts at today’s seven-furlong distance, with no finishes out of the money. She ran third behind Music Note in last year’s edition of the Ballerina.
Informed Decision has won 13 of her 18 career starts and enters the Ballerina off wins in the Chicago Handicap (G3) at Arlington and the $97,000 Windward Stakes at Presque Isle Downs, both in July. She’ll have usual rider Julien Leparoux aboard.
“She’s moving well; she looks strong, sharp and happy,” Sheppard said. “She doesn’t necessarily have to blow the field away, but she’ll have to run pretty darn well.”
The field also includes Rightly So (6-1) and Qualia (4-1), who finished first and second in the Bed O’ Roses Handicap (G3) at Belmont Park last month; Warbling (4-1), the winner of the Inside Information Stakes (G2) at Gulfstream Park in March; Pretty Prolific (12-1), who won the Sugar Swirl Stakes (G3) at Gulfstream in January; Devil by Design (12-1), the winner of the $70,000 Lucy Scribner Stakes at Saratoga last month; and First Passage (15-1), who won the Azalea Stakes (G3) at Calder last summer.
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Photo by Coglianese
