Two-for-two Be Your Best can make statement in Miss Grillo
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – If Be Your Best can build off her two emphatic victories in Saratoga when she runs in Saturday’s Grade 2, $200,000 Miss Grillo Stakes at Aqueduct, she may prove to be North America’s best chance at winning next month’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf at Keeneland.
Be Your Best, an Irish-bred daughter of Muhaarar trained by Horacio De Paz for Mike Ryan, won a maiden race by 3 1/4 lengths on July 31 and followed up with a 3 3/4-length victory in the $150,000 P.G. Johnson Stakes. Both races were run at 1 1/16 miles, the distance of the Miss Grillo.
Be Your Best showed a solid turn of foot in both her Saratoga wins, but was most impressive rallying up the rail in the P.G. Johnson after Jose Ortiz had to wait for room while allowing a few horses to get the jump on her. Once through the opening, however, Be Your Best kicked clear in the lane.
“He wanted to save ground, just hoping the rail would open up and she’d kick through there,” De Paz said. “He had me more worried about it than he was concerned about it. That’s the first thing he said when he came back ‘I had you concerned, huh?’ ”
The concern Saturday could be weather as there is rain in the forecast. Be Your Best did win the P.G. Johnson over good ground.
Chad Brown has won the Miss Grillo eight times, four of those winners coming back to win the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf. Saturday, he’ll send out Free Look, who finished third behind Be Your Best in a July 31 maiden before coming back to win her maiden by 2 1/2 lengths on Sept. 4 at Saratoga with an eye-catching move from the quarter pole to the wire.
Im Just Kiddin is a New York-bred daughter of Justify and a half-sister to 2017 BC Filly and Mare Sprint winner Bar of Gold. After finishing second in her debut on dirt, Im Just Kiddin won sprinting on turf at Saratoga. She missed a few weeks of training after getting loose one morning in Saratoga and suffering cuts on her shoulder, legs, and ankles, according to trainer John Kimmel. But she has three solid turf breezes over the Oklahoma turf course in Saratoga.
“It’s almost like with the time off she’s gotten bigger and stronger and has been tough to pull up in her breezes,” said Kimmel, who added he expects the longer distance to be better for Im Just Kiddin.
Trainer Jorge Abreu has the uncoupled entry of Georgees Spirit and Alluring Angel. Both won their maidens sprinting on turf at Saratoga. Alluring Angel came back to finish second, beaten a nose, in the Untapable Stakes going 6 1/2 furlongs at Kentucky Downs.
“She was compromised because she didn’t break, she really fought to finish second,” Abreu said. “And the filly that beat her had run four times. The only question I have for her is does she want to go that far.”
Abreu said he has more faith in Georgees Spirit’s ability to get the 1 1/16-mile distance.
Pleasant Passage was a first-out winner at Saratoga and has come back with two sharp blowouts over the Belmont Park turf course for trainer Shug McGaughey.
The winner of the Miss Grillo earns a fees-paid berth into the BC Juvenile Fillies Turf, which will be run at one mile.
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