Hopes still high for Top Decile

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – It was at Saratoga last summer that Top Decile began her career with a victory before going on to finish second in a pair of Grade 1 races, including the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies.

On Saturday, Top Decile returns to Saratoga to jump-start her 3-year-old season in a first-level allowance race for fillies and mares going seven furlongs on the dirt.

Top Decile hasn’t raced since finishing sixth in the Silverbulletday Stakes on Jan. 17 at Fair Grounds.

“We were thinking of giving her a break after the Breeders’ Cup, but she came out of it in good shape, and we didn’t win a stake at 2, so we tried it again,” trainer Al Stall said. “We don’t know why she didn’t show up.”

After the Silverbulletday, the decision was made to freshen Top Decile, and she was sent to the farm. She came back to Stall in mid-May and has gradually picked it up in her training, including a bullet five-furlong move in 58.56 seconds out of the gate here Aug. 3.

“That’s not a number I usually like to see in a work, but the track was very fast that day, and it gave us the confidence to go ahead and enter her,” Stall said. “We’re excited. Hopefully, she’s back in the game.”

Julien Leparoux rides Top Decile from post 4.

Her main competition figures to come from Elraazy, a 3-year-old daughter of Malibu Moon who is a half-sister to Saratoga debut winner J Be K. Elraazy won her debut at Belmont in June, then was beaten a nose by Jubilant Vision in a first-level allowance race July 4, also at Belmont.