Jouster, Con Lima form formidable Pletcher team in Wonder Again Stakes

ELMONT, N.Y. – With five graded stakes winners in the field and several others knocking on that door, the $200,000 Wonder Again has come up by far the strongest and most intriguing of three stakes races on Thursday’s nine-race program at Belmont Park.

The card also includes the $200,000 Intercontinental and $150,000 Astoria. First post is 3:05 p.m.

The Grade 3 Wonder Again will be run at a mile and one-eighth on the turf for 3-year-old fillies and lured Grade 2 winners Jouster, Gift List, and Plum Ali, along with Grade 3 winners Fluffy Socks and Con Lima. The lineup also includes stakes winner I Get It, the red-hot Technical Analysis, Mia Martina, Alwayz Late, and Creative Cairo.

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Among the more pertinent questions when handicapping the Wonder Again are can Jouster stretch her abundant speed nine furlongs and how will the pace scenario play out with her main rival for the early lead likely being her own Todd Pletcher-trained stablemate Con Lima?

“I think Jouster is the quicker of the two,” said Pletcher, who won last year’s renewal of the Wonder Again with Sweet Melania. “Con Lima has been able to sit off just a little bit. I think my biggest concern is what the ground is going to be like. We are trying a mile and one-eighth with Jouster, trying to define which direction we’re going to go in with her after this race. The Belmont Oaks is in play, or whether we have to back her up to races like the Lake George since we already know she’s effective at a mile and a mile and one-sixteenth.”

Jouster has won three of her four starts since being switched to the grass at the start of her 3-year-old campaign, with her lone setback coming by a nose as the 3-5 favorite in the Grade 3 Florida Oaks at Tampa in March. She bounced back with a 1 1/2-length victory in the one-mile Appalachian on April 3 at Keeneland, with her most immediate victims that day, Gift List and Plum Ali, who get another run at her on Thursday.

“If she’ll rate kindly enough, that’s going to be key if she’ll stretch out, although it might be a little more difficult for her on soft ground,” said Pletcher of Jouster. “I’d be more confident Con Lima can run on further.”

Con Lima has won three stakes, all this year. She showed a new dimension when she overcame a slow start and rallied from near the rear of the field to cross the finish line second in the Grade 3 Herecomesthebride at Gulfstream Park. She was elevated to first following the disqualification of original winner Spanish Loveaffair.

Gift List flattered her second behind Jouster in the Appalachian in her U.S. debut with a very impressive 4 1/4-length tally stretching to a mile and one-sixteenth four weeks later at Churchill Downs in the Grade 2 Edgewood for trainer Brian Lynch.

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“The Wonder Again came up a pretty strong bunch, but if you’re going to take the next step forward to get to a race like the Belmont Oaks, it’s a field you have to be able to beat,” said Lynch. “Jouster got an easy lead in the Appalachian, so all and all I thought that was a good, game effort off the bench for our filly. And she certainly improved in her next start. She’s doing well and it looks like the added distance and perhaps a little give in the ground will be to her advantage as well.”

Chad Brown, who has won three of the first seven renewals of the Wonder Again, has another strong hand this year with Fluffy Socks and Technical Analysis. Fluffy Socks closed out her juvenile campaign with a come-from-behind half-length victory in the Grade 3 Jimmy Durante at Del Mar, and after a freshening finished second, beaten a diminishing head, making her 3-year-old bow in the Memories of Silver at Aqueduct on April 18.

The lightly raced Technical Analysis makes her stakes debut coming off a pair of one-sided victories, including a 2 3/4-length allowance triumph at a mile and one-sixteenth here five weeks ago.

Plum Ali’s third-place finish behind Jouster and Gift List in the Appalachian was her lone start this season and her first outing since checking home fifth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf last November. She is one of two contenders Christophe Clement sends out along with recent maiden winner Creative Cairo.