Nutella Fella, Becky's Joker tune up for 3-year-old debuts

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Nutella Fella and Becky’s Joker were two of the more improbable winners of the 2023 Saratoga racing season. On Tuesday, the pair breezed six furlongs in company in 1:14.42 over the Oklahoma training track in their final serious works in preparation for their 2024 debuts, both of which are scheduled to take place during the Belmont Stakes Racing Festival next weekend at Saratoga.

Nutella Fella upset the Grade 1 Hopeful at 54-1 on closing day of the 2023 meet. Becky’s Joker captured the Grade 3 Schuylerville at 21-1 when making her career debut on opening day of the session six weeks earlier. Both youngsters are trained by Gary Contessa.

With Nutella Fella nearest the rail and with jockey Junior Alvarado aboard, the 3-year-olds posted splits of 24.89 seconds and 37.28 for the opening three furlongs while working over a fast track immediately after the second renovation break. Nutella Fella ultimately hit the wire about a half-length in front of his mate while going easiest of the pair to finish. They galloped out seven furlongs in 1:27.99. Nutella Fella and Becky’s Joker completed six furlongs in a very similar 1:14.80 over the same track just six days earlier.

Contessa said after that work that Nutella Fella, who has not started since rallying from last to a 1 1/2-length decision over favored Timberlake in the seven-furlong Hopeful, would launch his 3-year-old campaign a week from Saturday at the same distance in the Grade 1 Woody Stephens. Becky’s Joker, idle since finishing a distant seventh in the Grade 3 Adirondack here Aug. 6, will make her return 24 hours earlier in the Grade 1 Acorn.

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“That’s the second time they’ve worked three-quarters, and the first time I did it I was kind of nervous because she’s a tremendous work horse,” Contessa said immediately after the work. “And I really would have hated to see him get beat, but he’s just got a lot of heart and they ended up being a good team together. I put them back together again this time, she hung in there and he held her off. Just very, very pleased with both of them.”

Contessa said the work was extremely important for Becky’s Joker who he said has a “whole different ball game in mind” when she returns off the long layoff in the Acorn.

“She’s going to run a mile and one-eighth,” Contessa said. “And will probably be on the lead. He will go in the Woody Stephens. Had I had any hiccups in their training, I would have been concerned about bringing them back in these races. I think he’s dead fit. Because of how good this track is and how good the weather has been, I think I have him right where I need him to be.”

Contessa said Nutella Fella was sidelined after his stunning win in the Hopeful after undergoing surgery to repair an injury in his left hind ankle sustained while training up to the Grade 1 Champagne.

“We though he’d injured his foot, but it wound up being an incomplete fracture in there and we had to do surgery,” Contessa explained. “As for the filly, she just mentally fell apart on me at the end of last year, so we just decided to kick her out for a while, and she’s doing much better in that regard now.”

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