Being Betty gets first stakes win in Mt. Vernon
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SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Being Betty, with help from what her trainer called a perfect Irad Ortiz Jr. ride, won the $200,000 Mt. Vernon Stakes by a diminishing half-length on Wednesday at Saratoga.
That trainer, Lisa Bartkowski, won the first stakes race of her relatively brief career as a head trainer. Same with Being Betty, third and seventh in her first two such races and now a stakes winner in her 15th start.
Being Betty ($7.38 as the second choice), has ben on a roll during 2026, her 5-year-old season. Caught between distances – neither quite a sprinter nor a router – Being Betty, Bartkowski said, has learned to settle better this season. The key comes during the first part of a race.
“They kind of send her out of the gate so that she gets running, but then they sit there, and she’ll settle back. Before, if you didn’t get her running, she would be nowhere and sort of get rank behind horses. And if you sent her, she would just take off on the front end,” Bartkowski said.
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The Mt. Vernon is run over 1 1/16 miles, and at this level, Bartkowski feared that distance could prove a touch too far for Being Betty. This she conferred to Ortiz, who had not sat upon the horse in more than two years.
“I didn’t tell him what to do,” Bartkowski said. “You don’t have to tell Irad what to do.”
Being Betty did her thing – breaking sharply, then coming back to Ortiz and settling in second, a few lengths behind pacesetting Spinning Colors, who led from start to finish in the 2025 Mt. Vernon. The first quarter-mile went a slow 24.85, the half in a slow 49.75. Going into the far turn, Ortiz let Being Betty ease forward toward the pacesetter. The pace quickened, the third quarter going in 23.86, as odds-on favorite Five G came three-wide, Midnight Concerto outside her at the quarter pole.
Ortiz sat chilly until he straightened for home, then started riding Being Betty, throwing a couple crosses at her while hand-riding past the furlong grounds. With a distance-challenged horse, a rider cannot ask for too much too soon, and it was only approaching the sixteenth pole that Ortiz wielded his crop. Being Bettyresponded and gave a surge for 75 yards that pushed her clear. They were gaining at the wire, but too late.
Midnight Concerto finished second, a half-length ahead of a one-paced Five G. Being Betty clocked 1:41.74 over a firm course.
A homebred by Weekend Hideaway out of Lady Joan, by Courageous Cat, Being Betty campaigns for Hilly Fields Stables.
Bartkowski worked as an assistant to longtime trainer Phil Serpe before taking over the stable last summer. She still gallops and said Being Betty has her morning quirks.
“She is so difficult to ride. You have to be ready every moment," Bartkowski said. "She’s tough to gallop.”
Wednesday at Saratoga, she was impossible to pass.