Joint Return enters Cotillion on upswing

While California Chrome’s much anticipated return to the races makes the Grade 2 Pennsylvania Derby the No. 1 attraction on the biggest day of the Parx racing season next Saturday, the Grade 1 Cotillion could prove the deeper of the two races.

With eight days until the race, division leader Untapable and two of her closest challengers, Sweet Reason and Stopchargingmaria, are under consideration for the $1 million Cotillion.

Flying just under the radar are several lesser-known fillies whose careers are on the upswing: Monmouth Oaks winner Cassatt; West Riding, who is undefeated in two starts for trainer Bob Baffert; Little Alexis, who finished a closing third in the Grade 1 Test; and Joint Return, who was second to Stopchargingmaria in the Grade 1 Alabama.

Joint Return has shown promise in her 10 starts, winning three minor stakes in addition to placing in the Grade 2 Delaware Oaks. She took her game to a new level with the addition of blinkers in the Alabama, closing steadily through the final furlong to get within a half-length of Stopchargingmaria, a five-time graded winner of $1.4 million.

On Friday morning, John Servis, the trainer of Joint Return, was making his rounds at the Keeneland sales, the same venue where he purchased Joint Return for $60,000 two years ago on behalf of the Philadelphia-based Main Line Racing Stable. Joint Return is now a Grade 1-placed earner of more than $400,000.

“She’s been a different filly since we put the blinkers on her,” Servis said. “She was never a good work horse before. She’d go out and do everything right but it wouldn’t be eye-popping. After the Alabama I worked her without blinkers and she went okay. For her next work I put them back on and she was terrific.”

Joint Return was 24-1 in the Alabama and will be a big price again in the Cotillion, even though Servis’s work is well known at Parx, where he is based. Joint Return also will be shortening up from 1 1/4 miles to 1 1/16 miles – and longer is better for the late-running daughter of Include.

“It’s going to be a salty race for sure,” Servis said. “She’s a better horse without question now, it’s just how good is she?”

Servis said the Cotillion will most likely be Joint Return’s final start of the season and that he intends to race her next year at 4. Don’t be surprised to see her outrun her odds again in her season finale.