Echo Zulu returns to Saratoga, clashes with tough trio in Honorable Miss

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Echo Zulu returns to the site of where her championship campaign of 2021 began when she heads a compact quartet of graded stakes winners in Wednesday’s Grade 2, $200,000 Honorable Miss Handicap at Saratoga.

Echo Zulu won her career debut by 5 1/2 lengths and the Grade 1 Spinaway by four lengths to kick off her career and 2-year-old campaign that ended a perfect 4 for 4, earning the Eclipse Award for champion juvenile filly.

Echo Zulu’s 3-year-old year was a mixed bag. She was scratched out of the Grade 1 Acorn during the post parade for lameness. She came back that fall to win the Dogwood Stakes at Churchill and finished second behind Goodnight Olive in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint at Keeneland.

The goal for Echo Zulu this year is to get back to the Breeders’ Cup and potentially win a second divisional championship.

:: DRF's 2023 Saratoga headquarters: Previews, past performances, picks, recaps, news, and more.

Echo Zulu kicked off her 4-year-old campaign with a 5 3/4-length victory in the Grade 3 Winning Colors, which leads her to this spot.

“It’s who you expected her to be, very fast,” trainer Steve Asmussen said of Echo Zulu’s effort in the Winning Colors. “She’s a tremendous horse.”

Asmussen said he doesn’t expect Echo Zulu to improve from the Winning Colors to this race, but he does expect an improvement from the Honorable Miss to the “next one,” presumably the Grade 1 Ballerina here Aug. 26.

“This is not the goal, we’re trying to build to the end of the year,” Asmussen said.

Florent Geroux rides Echo Zulu from the rail.

Frank’s Rockette, who has 10 wins and nine seconds in 25 stakes tries, has some early gas herself, should her connections choose to use it. Frank’s Rockette has won her last three starts, though she has not faced the caliber of Echo Zulu in any of them.

“No easy spot, but funny enough, those listed races in Kentucky they weren’t easy either,” trainer Bill Mott said.

Frank’s Rockette hasn’t run since winning the Roxelana Stakes opening night of the Churchill meet on April 29.

“She’s fresh, she always runs pretty good fresh,” Mott said. “We’ve skipped a race or two that we could have run in if we had been anxious to run.”

Junior Alvarado rides Frank’s Rockette from post 2.

Maryquitecontrary also skipped a race or two due to an illness she had upon shipping to New York from Kentucky in the spring. Maryquitecontrary has won 6 of 8 starts and is coming off a second-place finish to Goodnight Olive – the reigning female sprint champion – in the Grade 1 Madison on April 7 at Keeneland.

That was her first start for trainer Shug McGaughey, who felt his filly had a bit of wide trip in the Madison but otherwise “I thought she ran very well,” McGaughey said.

Dr B finished second to Goodnight Olive in an allowance race here last summer and then ended her campaign with solid victory in the Grade 3 Go for Wand run over a sloppy Aqueduct main track. She has not been able to recapture that form in either of her two starts this year.

With only four horses, the Honorable Miss is carded as the fourth race on a 10-race card that begins at 1:10 p.m.

:: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.