La Verdad takes down champ in Honorable Miss

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – The much-anticipated duel between the reigning sprint champion Judy the Beauty and the New York-bred millionaire La Verdad developed early but lasted for little more than three-eighths of a mile in Wednesday’s $200,000 Honorable Miss Handicap. That’s about how far it took for La Verdad to shake off the champ en route to a convincing four-length victory in the Grade 2 dash for older fillies and mares.

With jockey Jose Ortiz aboard, La Verdad sprinted to the front as expected while stalked early by Judy the Beauty, which came as a bit of a surprise. La Verdad shook free of her early pursuer leaving the backstretch, settled into the stretch with a comfortable advantage, and extended her lead despite drifting out a bit near the end. Street Story raced wide while kept within easy striking distance and ran down Judy the Beauty to finish second. Enchantress and Ultimate Shopper rounded out the complete order of finish.

La Verdad, a 5-year-old daughter of Yes It’s True, is trained by Linda Rice for the Lady Sheila Stable. She completed six furlongs in 1:09.14 over the fast track and returned $4.60.

“Judy the Beauty is the champ and is pretty intimidating, and I was nervous running against that type of a filly,” said Rice. “And obviously, everything went pretty well today. La Verdad is in her best form right now, and that’s great because we’re going into the Ballerina and going after that elusive first Grade 1 victory.”

The Grade 1 Ballerina will be decided at seven furlongs Aug. 29.

“She’s very good at six [furlongs], and seven furlongs might be just outside her best distance, but she’s in such great form I believe she’s going to run as good a seven furlongs as she’s capable of right now,” said Rice.

Wesley Ward, who owns and trains Judy the Beauty, said he was proud of his mare even in defeat.

“[Joel Rosario] kind of thinks as she’s getting older, she wants to run a little farther now,” said Ward. “That other filly was going to be out there on a real easy lead unless he went a little bit, and she really doesn’t like to be rushed like that. But I thought it was a good race. Saratoga is tough. Everybody brings their ‘A’ game to the party. I was proud of her.”