Aqueduct: Off layoff, Jody’s Pride tries turf in Pebbles

Grade 1-placed Jody’s Pride returns from a seven-month layoff in Friday’s Grade 3 Pebbles, a one-mile inner turf test for sophomore fillies, at Aqueduct.

Trainer Jorge Abreu has had Jody’s Pride pointed to this race for the last month in pursuit of the American Pharoah dark bay’s first graded victory as she switches to turf in her sixth career start.

Jody’s Pride has not raced since an off-the-board finish in the 1 1/16-mile Ashland (G1) on April 5 at Keeneland. In her lone other start this year, she won the listed Busher Invitational going a one-turn mile over sloppy and sealed going in March here.

In her juvenile campaign, Jody’s Pride graduated on debut at Saratoga ahead of a win in the local off-the-turf six-furlong Matron, but her most memorable performance was a neck defeat in the 1 1/16-mile Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies at Santa Anita, with the victorious Just F Y I going on to receive champion 2-Year-Old Filly honors.

Macanga earned a Grade 2 placing last out when defeated a neck by Spaliday after showing the way in the nine-furlong Sands Point on Oct. 12 at Aqueduct.

Trainer Rick Dutrow Jr. said he was pleased with the American Pharoah bay’s performance where she was nailed late for first but held second by two lengths over Style Points. She was also third in the one-mile Wild Applause in June.

“Hopefully she runs big again. She loves this grass course and has run big over it a couple of times, so we are going to try to get our last licks in with her,” Dutrow said.

Macanga has employed front-running tactics in her last five starts, opening up over six lengths on the field in her last outing and 10 lengths before that when fading to ninth in the local 11-furlong Grade 3 Jockey Club Oaks Invitational in September.

Of Macanga’s tendency to run off on the lead, Dutrow said, “It is not the way we design it, it is the way she is demanding it. We’d love for her to ease off herself, but she is just not ready to do that yet. We try to tell the jockeys to slow her down as much as they can, we don’t say let’s open up four or five, but she is just not ready to give in.”

Group 3-placed See You Around is set for her stateside debut in her first start for conditioner Christophe Clement. The Siyouni bay made her previous nine starts in France for Philippe Sogorb, including a last-out third in the Prix de Lieurey F.E.E. (G3) going one mile over firm turf at Deauville.

See You Around prepared for her American debut with a half-mile breeze in 50 seconds flat Friday over the Belmont Park dirt training track, which was one week after a five-eighths breeze over Saratoga’s Oklahoma turf in 1:02.25 in company with multiple Grade 1-winner and Breeders’ Cup Turf competitor Far Bridge.

Christophe Lorieul, the Belmont Park-based assistant to Clement, said See You Around is acclimating well to her new environment.

“She's done well. When she came to us, she was a typical European filly and a little bit on the skinny side, but she's put on some weight and has been training forwardly,” Lorieul said.