Trainer Larry Jones and jockey
Rosie Napravnik both believed in Brereton Jones’s
Believe You Can, and the daughter of Proud Citizen rewarded their faith with a length and a half victory in Saturday’s
$125,000 Silverbulletday Stakes, first leg of Fair Grounds’ three race series for sophomore fillies that concludes with the
Grade II Fair Grounds Oaks March 31.
“We
were confident that she’d go far,” said trainer Jones in the winner’s
circle following the Silverbulletday about Believe You Can’s first
race around two turns. “I’ve probably trained more (Proud Citizens)
than anyone,” speaking of his latest female star. “If they are good sprinting, they are better going long.”
Jones trained another daughter of Proud Citizen, Brereton Jones’s
Proud Spell, to win the Grade II Fair Grounds Oaks
and Grade I Kentucky Oaks
in 2008.
With
her Silverbulletday score, Believe You Can increased her career
earnings to $187,284 with her fourth win in six lifetime starts and
returned
mutuels of $7, $3.20 and $2.20 following the withdrawal of Ramona
Bass’s odds-on morning line favorite
Applauding, owned by Ramona Bass, at scratch time Saturday morning due to a mild case of colic.
“I would say she just had a slight tummy ache when I got here this morning,” said trainer
Al Stall, Jr. shortly after training hours on Saturday. “She responded to treatment immediately. She’ll be fine.”
“With
the key scratch out of here it set up the race a little bit
differently, but I’ve been working this filly a few times and she’s
really
impressed me,” Napravnik said. “Larry (Jones) was telling me if she’s
anything like Proud Spell, she’d be a fighter and she absolutely was.
She wasn’t giving an inch.”
After
setting early fractions of 23.82 and 47.98, Believe You Can
accomplished the mile and 70 yard-Silverbulletday distance in 1:42.34.
Gillian Campbell et al.’s even-money favorite
Summer Applause prompted
the pace of the winner throughout, could not catch that one but gamely
held the place, paying $2.60 and $2.10 while finishing a nose in front
of Jake Ballis’s
Inny Minnie, who returned $2.20 to show.
The second leg of Fair Grounds’ sophomore filly series – the Grade III Rachel Alexandra Stakes – is to be contested Feb. 25 on
Louisiana Derby Preview Day.