Zayat fillies take on males in With Anticipation

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Not enough juvenile fillies entered the P.G. Johnson Stakes for the race to be carded, but the ones that want to run will get to do so, albeit against males, in Friday's $80,000 With Anticipation Stakes at Saratoga.

Four fillies were entered along with three colts and three geldings in the With Anticipation, scheduled for 1 1/16 miles on the Mellon Turf Course. The With Anticipation is the feature on a nine-race card that begins at 2:45 p.m. as part of Saratoga's ongoing twilight racing experiment.

Owner Ahmed Zayat is having such a terrific meet that perhaps he can beat the boys with his fillies Sherine and Zee Zee, who will run as a coupled entry. Sherine, a New York-bred daughter of Precise End trained by Anthony Dutrow, won a 1 1/16-mile statebred maiden turf race by 6 1/2 lengths here on Aug. 5 and has since come back with a bullet five-furlong workout over the training turf course.

Zee Zee, trained by Bill Mott, won her debut by a neck, but was confidently ridden by jockey Kent Desormeaux.

"She was behind a fairly slow pace and she still closed," Mott said.

Mott also entered the colt Caravel, who was steadied in the stretch when finishing second to Rebounded, who came over on Caravel in deep stretch. Caravel was a workmate on Wednesday of Quota, a recent allowance winner likely headed to a stakes.

High Appeal, trained by Michael Trombetta, could be the horse to beat in the With Anticipation. A son of Songandaprayer, High Appeal is 2 for 2 with both wins coming in 5 1/2-furlong sprints at Colonial Downs by a combined 13 3/4 lengths.

"He did those two fairly easily, he wasn't put to a drive in either one," Trombetta said.

Trombetta said stretching out in distance from 5 1/2 furlongs to 1 1/16 miles "is always a concern, but my choices with him were either to sprint him on dirt or keep him on a surface we know he likes."

The aforementioned Rebounded lived up to his rich turf pedigree in his debut. He saved ground behind horses before coming off the rail at the quarter pole, where he forced another horse out. He closed well, though he did come over on Caravel after opening up a clear lead in deep stretch.

"It looked like his feet slipped out from underneath him," trainer Barclay Tagg said. "Any time you come from off it, weaving your way through horses, I thought he looked like a pretty clever little horse."