I'm the Boss of Me seeks elusive stakes win in Poinsettia

I’m the Boss of Me will be looking to nail down her first stakes win Saturday when she takes on the sharp 3-year-old fillies Topsy and High Class in the $150,000 Poinsettia at Oaklawn Park.

The 5 1/2-furlong stakes for fillies and mares shares a card with an allowance sprint that drew multiple stakes winner Skelly. The winner of last year’s Grade 3 Count Fleet, Skelly will be seeking his sixth straight win.

I’m the Boss of Me has run second or third in three stakes during her career, including last year’s Matron at Oaklawn. She was third behind Wicked Halo and next-out Grade 1 winner Matareya. The Poinsettia will be I’m the Boss of Me’s first start since July, and she has turned in some sharp works at her base of Oaklawn.

“She’s training well,” trainer Greg Compton said. “She’s coming into this fresh. She’s fired off the bench before fresh. I expect her to run well. Hopefully, she can break through and get that elusive stakes win this time around.”

I’m the Boss of Me exits a fifth-place finish in the $100,000 Dashing Beauty at Delaware. The winner of the race, Alva Starr, has since won the Grade 2 Prioress at Saratoga and finished second by a half-length in the Grade 2 Raven Run at Keeneland with a career-high Beyer Speed Figure of 100. Alva Starr won the Dashing Beauty by more than six lengths on July 8.

“We made a nice move on Alva Starr up to the quarter pole and looked like we might go past her, then she hit another gear and won going away,” Compton said. “And then she backed it up in her next two starts. She’s a quality filly.”

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Following the start, Compton had other stakes options, but decided to back off I’m the Boss of Me.

“We were training up to a stakes at either Charles Town or Laurel and she’d been working really well,” he said. “After the last work I didn’t like it that much and just decided to kick her out and point to Oaklawn.

“She’s made the bulk of her money here and sure seems to like running over this surface.”

Francisco Arrieta has the mount from post 3. I’m the Boss of Me has natural speed and could show the way or track the rail-drawn High Class.

“We should be in a forward position,” Compton said. “I don’t know if we’ll be on the front or just off of it. She usually breaks pretty sharp. She doesn’t seem to like being rushed completely, in two or three jumps she seems to start picking it up.”

High Class is seeking her third straight win. She wired her rivals over 5 1/2 furlongs in a two-other-than allowance Nov. 16 at Churchill Downs. For the effort, she earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 89, which is the best last-race number in the Poinsettia.

Crisitan Torres has the mount for trainer Steve Asmussen.

Asmussen also sends out Topsy. He said she has been pointed to the race since her win last out in the $100,000 Zia Park Distaff on Nov. 28.

Topsy was winning her second straight race that afternoon, over a Grade 3 winner in Canoodling.

“She’d run some good races in the spring, then as a 3-year-old filly beat older mares in the stakes,” Asmussen said of the Zia Distaff.

Ricardo Santana Jr. has the mount on Topsy.

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