Honorable Miss Stakes proves too difficult for Bella Sofia to resist

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - The connections of Bella Sofia were planning to go easy with the 4-year-old filly this year, with designs of having a fresh horse for the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint in November.

But with Bella Sofia continuing to do so well and with field size in the female sprint stakes in New York continuing to come up light, it’s virtually impossible to leave her in the barn.

Thus, Bella Sofia will line up against three rivals in Wednesday’s Grade 2, $200,000 Honorable Miss Handicap at Saratoga. The Honorable Miss is the local prep for the Grade 1 Ballerina Handicap here on Aug. 28.

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So far this year, Bella Sofia beat four rivals in the Grade 3 Vagrancy Handicap at Belmont on May 14 and then came back to beat three rivals in the Grade 2 Bed o’ Roses at Belmont on June 10.

Rodriguez was very impressed with Bella Sofia’s five-furlong workout in 59.20 seconds on July 16. He planned to blow the filly out again over the weekend.

“She’s very good right now,” trainer Rudy Rodriguez said. ”She’s training very good. The other day the breeze was very impressive. She seems very happy. She’s training very, very good. She acclimated herself very well in Saratoga and she looks bright and alert.”

Last summer, Bella Sofia won the Grade 1 Test here.

From the rail out, the Honorable Miss field is Frank’s Rockette (Flavien Prat), Bella Sofia (Luis Saez), Amadevil (Jose Ortiz) and Kimari (Joel Rosario).

The Honorable Miss goes as race 4 on a 10-race card that begins at 1:05 p.m.