2023 Eclipse Awards: Just F Y I

Just F Y I put together an unbeaten three-start campaign in 2023, capped by a victory in the NetJets Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, to make herself a finalist for the Eclipse Award as champion 2-year-old filly.

History is on her side. Since the first running of the Breeders’ Cup in 1984, 34 winners of the Juvenile Fillies have been honored with the Eclipse Award as outstanding 2-year-old filly.

Kentucky-bred Just F Y I, an April foal, races as a homebred for California-based George Krikorian. The daughter of Triple Crown winner Justify – also the sire of fellow Breeders’ Cup winner and divisional finalist Hard to Justify – is out of Krikorian’s stakes-placed homebred Star Act, who in turn is out of the owner’s Grade 1-winning millionaire Starrer.

Krikorian placed the big bay with Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott.

:: Full list of 2023 Eclipse Awards finalists, including profile stories

“It’s very special,” Mott said last fall. Krikorian “has been a very good client and he sends me some horses that he thinks are going to be okay. I have a small group of horses for him, but they are all quite nice.”

Mott unveiled Just F Y I on the Travers Stakes undercard on Aug. 26 at Saratoga, giving a leg up to Junior Alvarado, who remained her rider all season. In a field of 10 well-bred and well-meant fillies, Just F Y I was up late to win the six-furlong race by a head.

The filly stretched out to a mile and stepped up in class for the Grade 1 Frizette Stakes on Oct. 7 at the Belmont at Aqueduct fall meet – and had to contend with a sloppy, sealed track to boot. She handled the conditions with aplomb, edging away in the stretch to win by 3 3/4 lengths.

Just F Y I drew the outside post in a field of 12 for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies on Nov. 3 at Santa Anita and was sent away as the third choice in the 1 1/16-mile race. Just F Y I sat in second off favored Tamara in the early going and willingly moved up to engage her when Alvarado asked on the far turn.

“By the half-mile pole, I was excited,” Alvarado said postrace. “I knew what I had under me.”

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Just F Y I forged her way to command inside the three-sixteenths pole, shook clear to a 1 1/2-length lead in midstretch, and then held sway gamely as Jody’s Pride closed late and won by a neck.

Just F Y I’s pair of Grade 1 victories in the fall gave her 40 points to top the early leaderboard for the Kentucky Oaks in May at Churchill Downs. Mott is hopeful the filly will come out even better when she begins serious 3-year-old training with him in Florida.

“Hopefully, she is the type that will [mature well] because she is a big, scopey filly and it looks like she has room to fill out and mature,” Mott said following the Breeders’ Cup. “She is still kind of a big string bean. But she is very athletic.”

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