Believe You Can Wires Silverbulletday

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.