Inside Information: Tessa Blue wires

In a race that finished the same way it began, Tessa Blue splashed her way around the sloppy Monmouth Park oval en route to a 12 1/2-length victory over Lost Etiquette in the $250,000 Inside Information Breeders' Cup.

Lost Etiquette, who raced in second all the way under Kent Desormeaux, finished three lengths ahead of Talkin About Love. Boca Grande and Bare Dancer completed the order of finish. Honorable Truth was scratched.

Under Mike Smith, Tessa Blue easily made the lead leaving the starting gate, opened up a 2 1/2-length advantage after running fractions of 24.31 seconds, 48.00, and 1:11.82, ran away from the field in upper stretch and covered the 1 1/16 miles in 1:41.74 while being ridden out. She returned $4.80 as the favorite.

"That was a Breeders' Cup performance, I really thought," Smith said. "She ran dynamite. She handled the mud so well, just skipped away from them when I asked her, and it was pretty much all her. I think I let her run from the quarter pole to the eighth pole, and that was it."

It was the fourth victory from 10 lifetime starts for Tessa Blue, who was coming off a score in the Grade 3 Indiana Oaks on Oct. 5. A daughter of Awesome Again owned by Bruce Lunsford, Tessa Blue has shown vast improvement since trainer Frank Brothers elected to stretch her out in distance.

"I was a little hardheaded about stretching her out because she had a few little excuses here and there, and then once we stretched her out she was a different horse," Brothers said.