Jo Jo Air can erase all doubt in The Very One

BALTIMORE – There’s something for everyone on the Preakness undercard – especially if you’re a filly or mare specializing in turf racing.

Four of the 14 races Saturday at Pimlico are for fillies and mares on the turf, including three stakes. The Grade 3, $150,000 Gallorette (race 10) is foremost among them, but there’s also the $100,000 The Very One (race 9), the $100,000 Searching (race 7), and an allowance sprint (race 4).

Here’s a quick rundown of the two ungraded stakes on the card:

The Very One

Jo Jo Air wheels back three weeks after winning a race in which Bulletin, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint last fall, finished fourth as a 1-10 favorite. Fluky win or no?

“I mean, she ran her race and got there first,” said Wesley Ward, trainer of Jo Jo Air. “She took it right to them. She came out of the race great, and now she gets to run against fillies only, even though they’re older.”

Indeed, after facing 3-year-old males in her 14-1 upset of the April 27 William Walker over the Churchill Downs turf, Jo Jo Air will be the only 3-year-old in a field of nine in the $100,000 The Very One, which goes at five furlongs.

“It’s getting to be that time of year anyway,” said Ward, who is known for bucking convention.

Hall of Fame jockey John Velazquez has a return call on Jo Jo Air, a Scat Daddy filly who has been pegged as a lukewarm 3-1 program favorite in what appears to be a well-matched lineup. Other contenders include Souper Echo (post 4, Julian Pimentel), a last-out Laurel Park winner whose connections, Live Oak Stud and trainer Mike Trombetta, will be represented later in the Preakness with Win Win Win; Misericordia (post 8, Jevian Toledo), a stakes-seasoned English-bred 5-year-old with a potent stalking style; and Wild About Star (post 9, Daniel Centeno), heretofore a standout in the Louisiana-bred ranks for Brittlyn Stables.

This will be the 19th running of the The Very One, which is named for Helen Polinger’s standout grass mare of the early 1980s.

Searching

After two excruciatingly close defeats at the Gulfstream Park championship meet, Ickymasho finally kicked down the door under a terrific ride from Jose Ortiz in the Grade 3 Bewitch at Keeneland last month.

Roger Attfield, the Hall of Fame trainer of Ickymasho, said he hadn’t really considered running the 7-year-old English-bred back in the 1 1/2-mile Searching on just three weeks’ rest, “but she’s just been doing so very, very well.”

“I’ve always believed when they’re doing well you should let them run,” he said.

Ickymasho, with Ortiz back to ride, is the 8-5 program favorite in a field of nine in the Searching. Ickymasho will break from post 5 in the three-turn race.

“I just think the mare is doing better this year than she’s ever done, which gives me hope that you get better as you get older,” said the always sublime Attfield, 79.

Ortiz genuinely helped the cause in the Bewitch, as he sensed the pace was too slow and sent Ickymasho to an open lead midway through the race. She finished clear of a late bid from Gaining by a length. She had suffered head defeats in the Orchid and the The Very One at Gulfstream in her two prior races.

Among the top challengers to Ickymasho are Homeland Security (post 2, Irad Ortiz Jr.), making her second start in the care of noted turf trainer Christophe Clement; Osare (post 3, Javier Castellano), making her first start since winning the Dueling Grounds Oaks last September at Kentucky Downs; Vevina (post 6, Luis Saez), a last-out allowance winner over the Keeneland turf for Phil D’Amato; and Violet Blue (post 9, Tyler Gaffalione), whose latest start at Aqueduct for Jimmy Toner may put her on edge.

This is the inaugural running of the Searching, named for Ethel Jacobs’s 1978 Hall of Fame inductee who was a foal of 1952 and the dam of Affectionately.