Jenny Wiley a major test for Sacred Wish, Be Your Best

Saturday’s Grade 1 Jenny Wiley Stakes will show whether Sacred Wish and Be Your Best have benefited from finding soft spots or have risen to become top-level grass mares.

Those two are among nine entered in the Grade 1 Jenny Wiley, which, thanks to overseas runners, has come up a tough race.

Be Your Best capped a three-race winning streak by beating Sacred Wish by a neck in the Pegasus World Cup Filly and Mare Turf, the most recent start for both horses. Sacred Wish on Dec. 1 won the Grade 1 Matriarch at Del Mar, where she beat Gina Romantica and Ag Bullet – two horses of greater accomplishment than Be Your Best.

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“She’s been a trainer’s dream,” said George Weaver, who’s trained Sacred Wish since the start of her career two winters ago. “What she’s done is filled out as she’s gotten older and also gotten more mature mentally.”

Besides Group 1-placed Excellent Truth, who makes her North American debut and first start for trainer Chad Brown, the Jenny Wiley drew Choisya, who beat the Grade 1 winner Cinderella’s Dream on Feb. 21 in Dubai in the Group 2 Balanchine Stakes. Also entered is the England-based Jabaara, second last summer in the Group 1 Falmouth Stakes for trainer Roger Varian.

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