Jessica Krupnick in prime position for MATCH Series bonuses

Jessica Krupnick held on by a whisker to win a three-horse photo finish in the Dashing Beauty Stakes at Delaware Park last Saturday. The win was her first in a stakes, pushed her earnings to more than $200,000, and made her a major player in the MATCH Series.

An Uncle Mo 5-year-old, Jessica Krupnick is having her best season for Fair Hill-based horseman Tres Abbott. The stakes win was important to her owner, the Sycamore Racing V partnership, because it improved her residual value after her racing days are over.

Jessica Krupnick is in an enviable position in the Mid-Atlantic Championships. With two races to go in the filly-and-mare dirt-sprint division, she tops the standings with 17 points. Her nearest rivals, Vertical Oak and Chalon, have 10 points each, but neither is expected to compete in the series again.

The Dashing Beauty also put Jessica Krupnick in a tie with Page McKenney for the overall MATCH Series championship. While the owner and trainer of a division winner receive $20,000 and $15,000, the connections of the overall champion will earn an additional $50,000 and $25,000.

In an oddity that works to Jessica Krupnick’s benefit, the next leg of her division is the $100,000 Satin and Lace Stakes at Presque Isle Downs, which has a Tapeta synthetic surface.

Abbott regularly works Jessica Krupnick over the Tapeta training track at Fair Hill and sent her to Woodbine in April, when she ran a very good race on Tapeta to be fourth, beaten three-quarters of a length, in the Grade 3 Whimsical.

In her start prior to the Dashing Beauty, Jessica Krupnick finished second to the impressive winner Chalon in the Regret Stakes, a MATCH race at Monmouth Park. Trevor McCarthy was aboard in the Regret and Dashing Beauty.

“I think it’s a great series – it’s fun,” Abbott said. “Trevor was the reason she was second at Monmouth. I told him before the race that her dam is a half-sister to a Grade 1 winner, and it was important to get her some black type. He rode her all the way and got up for second by a neck.

“After we earned seven points there, it kind of behooved us to come back in the Delaware race.”

Abbott, 35, and his father, bloodstock analyst Francis Abbott Jr., started the Sycamore Racing partnerships when Tres Abbott went out on his own as a trainer in 2010 after working for Todd Pletcher, Michael Stoute, and Aidan O’Brien. Each year, Sycamore purchases two fillies at auction for less than $100,000 each.

“It’s mostly people from the area, but it’s kind of grown,” Abbott said.

One of Sycamore’s first purchases was Nellie Cashman, who won the Grade 3 Virginia Oaks at Colonial Downs, crossed the wire first in the Grade 2 Lake Placid at Saratoga but was disqualified to third, and later won the $100,000 Dahlia at Pimlico. Nellie Cashman earned $349,000 on the track and sold for $280,000 at the 2015 Keeneland November sale.

Jessica Krupnick was purchased for $45,000 at the 2014 Keeneland September sale. She is from Uncle Mo’s first crop.

“She was kind of a big, backward, soft yearling, and nobody really knew then how good a sire he was going to become,” Abbott said.

Jessica Krupnick has steadily improved since returning from a 10-month layoff in October. She has put together a 6-3-2-0 record this year.

“As she has gotten older, I definitely think she has mellowed,” Abbott said. “She used to train very hard, and when she breezed would break off fast from the pole. A lot of her success belongs to her riders in the morning who have tried to get her to relax a little bit.”