Berth in Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf on the line in Jessamine Stakes

LEXINGTON, Ky. – How can any one horse be the favorite in the Jessamine Stakes?

Nearly half the capacity field of 2-year-old fillies are within a whisper of each other in regard to a career-high Beyer Speed Figure, one of numerous variables that will make for a wide-open tote board when the Grade 2, $200,000 Jessamine is run Wednesday as the 10th and last Win and You’re In event of the Keeneland fall meet.

Sixteen are entered although only as many as 14 can start in this 29th running of the Jessamine, a 1 1/16-mile turf race with an expenses-paid berth at stake to the Nov. 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf at Santa Anita. Six of them have top Beyers in the narrow range of 71 to 73 – Morning Gold, Jezebel’s Kitten, Sweet Melania, Takeitback, Diamond Sparkles, and Swanage – while a seventh filly, Indochine, surely will attract attention as a last-out maiden winner for Chad Brown.

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Morning Gold drew post 1 after flubbing her last race – the Pocahontas on dirt – following a 5 1/4-length maiden score on the Saratoga turf.

“Her two races in Saratoga were great,” said Kenny McPeek, who trains Morning Gold for C&H Diamond Racing, “and we felt like she’d take to the dirt, but she didn’t. So we’re regrouping here a little bit. I’m still very optimistic she can punch her ticket to California.”

McPeek has won the Jessamine four times, tops among trainers. His first win came in 1992, when this race was still known as the Green River Stakes.

Jezebel’s Kitten and High On Gin are the only stakes winners in the lineup, having won the Kentucky Downs Juvenile Fillies and the Happy Ticket, respectively. Jezebel’s Kitten was particularly impressive in her 4 3/4-length romp for Brad Cox, who already has major players for the Breeders’ Cup with Covfefe (Filly and Mare Sprint), Arklow (Turf), and British Idiom (Juvenile Fillies).

“That was a huge race for her at Kentucky Downs,” Cox said. “She’s come back to train well, and we’re hoping she’ll be another we’ll be sending out West.”

Sweet Melania, trained by Todd Pletcher, suddenly blossomed this summer when stretching out on the Saratoga turf, winning a July maiden race before finishing a just-miss second to Crystalle in the P.G. Johnson in the final week of the meet.

Indochine is the lone starter in this spot for Brown, the three-time defending champion trainer who sent a 28-horse string here from New York for the month. The War Front filly was odds-on in winning her second start in the maiden ranks when going a mile on the Belmont Park turf. Brown won the Jessamine with Kitten Kaboodle (2013) and Rushing Fall (2017).

Diamond Sparkles, another War Front filly, was fourth for trainer Mark Casse in the Grade 1 Natalma over a yielding Woodbine turf in her North American debut last month.

The 2018 Jessamine winner was Concrete Rose, who proceeded to win all four of her starts this year for Rusty Arnold before being sidelined with a minor injury.

The Jessamine, named for the county situated just to the southeast of Keeneland, goes as the seventh of eight Wednesday races. First post is 1:05 p.m. Eastern, with the feature going at 4:24 and the last at 4:57. The forecast calls for mostly sunny skies and a high of 78.