LEXINGTON, Ky.— Augustin Stable’s Delight owns one major advantage over her rivals in Friday’s $350,000 JPMorgan Chase Jessamine (G2): She has a race over the Keeneland turf course.
“We bought her in March and figured she would be a good, two-turn turf filly,” trainer Jonathan Thomas said Thursday morning shortly after he arrived in Lexington from New York. “The race here (a 5½-furlong sprint on April 29) gave us the opportunity to get started.”
Delight finished third that day behind Love Reigns (IRE) after being bothered at the start and into the turn in the 12-horse field.
“We gave her a break before going to Saratoga, and I was happy with her race there,” Thomas said of a third-place finish on Aug. 7 going 1 1/16 miles, the same distance as Friday’s race. “She got beat by a Chad Brown horse (Pink Hue), but I thought it was a sneaky good race.
“I ran her back a little quick at Delaware hoping to get a race in to set up the timing for a race like this.”
Delight picked up her initial win that afternoon as the 3-10 favorite on Aug. 27 at Delaware Park while making her third career start.
“I would have been disappointed if she had not run well,” Thomas said. “That gave us five weeks until the Selima at Laurel (last Saturday), but it got rained off the turf and so we came here and it is now six weeks (since her last start), which is good timing.”
Luis Saez, who was aboard Delight in her first two starts, has the mount Friday and will break from post position three.
The JPMorgan Chase Jessamine is a Breeders’ Cup Challenge race that provides the winner with a fees-paid berth into the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf (G1) to be run here Nov. 4.
Take a look at the field below:
Keeneland Press Release/Edited
Main photo courtesy of Keeneland
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