What a great weekend of racing we have coming up!!
Kicking off this Friday at the Fabulous Saratoga racetrack with the Grade I Ballerina Stakes worth $700,000 for 3YO & Up Fillies and Mares then on Saturday we get three more Grade I’s including the meets pinnacle, the $1,000,000 Travers Stakes. But it doesn’t end there, come Sunday we have another Grade I at Saratoga, the Personal Ensign Invitational and then it all tops off with the $1,000,000 Grade I TGV Pacific Classic at Del Mar racecourse! Now that’s a lot to take in, but it makes for a fantastic 3 days of action.
For now, let’s have a quick look Fridays Ballerina stakes at Saratoga.
The small field of Seven should make for an even run race but with the likely withdrawal of It’s Tricky in favor of Sundays Personal Ensign, it will be Turbulent Descent who figures to be an odds-on favorite without the multiple Grade I winner stepping out. Turbulent descent, having its first start for new trainer Todd Pletcher after being purchased by Coolmore.
Nicole H will be seeking her third victory of 2012 and first since February in the Ballerina. The five-year-old mare won the Interborough and Correction over Aqueduct Racetrack’s inner track this past winter, and, while close, has yet to find the winner’s circle in five starts since, however, Saratoga’s leading rider, Ramon Dominguez, will be aboard Nicole H.
Competing in a Grade 1 for the first time is Island Bound, who rallied from last to just miss by a neck in the Grade 2 Honorable Miss Handicap on August 3. Victorious in the Grade 3 Winning Colors at Churchill Downs in her graded stakes debut, the five-year-old Speightstown mare has been training forwardly at Saratoga and trainer Ian Wilkes is hoping she will step up and perform well at this level. Julien Leparoux rides Island Bound.
The Ballerina also drew Grade 3 Bed o’ Roses winner Derwin’s Star; All Due Respect, most recently sixth in an overnight turf stakes at Belmont, and Belle of the Hall, fourth in the Honorable Miss.
Selections. 1.Turbulent Descent 2. Derwins Star 3.Nicole H