Belmont Park: Pebbles Lures Eleven
Elusive Pearl, Ruthenia and Divalarious,
the top three finishers from the Riskaverse Stakes at Saratoga Race
Course, will reconvene in Monday's Columbus Day feature, the $100,000
Pebbles at a mile on the turf.
Ruthenia, winner of the
Good Mood overnight stakes on Belmont's inner turf last year, enters off
two second-place finishes: her late charge from last in the Riskaverse
and a three-quarter-length loss to My Redbyrd in the Hattie Moseley.
"You
know the filly well, she ran two good races in Saratoga, she looks
well, she's trained well," reported trainer Christophe Clement. "She's a
little bit gone in her coat, we had to clip her yesterday. She looks
pretty good, she obviously does not look as well as when she had a
summer coat."
Divalarious,
trained by Chad Brown, will be making her second straight stakes
appearance in the Pebbles, having finished well to gain third, 2 ¾
lengths back, in the Riskaverse. Javier Castellano will ride the
Distorted Humor filly, 6-1 on the morning line, from post position 8.
Hessonite,
who defeated males in the New York Stallion Series at the Spa on August
11, tries open company for the second time on Monday. Third in the
Grade 3 Boiling Springs at Monmouth Park in June, the Freud filly was
scratched out of the September 25 John Hettinger when it came off the
turf.
"The Pebbles will be a good test for her," he
added. "It's going to give me a little line on her for next year. I
don't have any doubt she'll be one of the better New York-breds next
year. It will give me a little line on how aggressive our thought
process can get. She has a pretty decent future, and maybe we'll see a
little more of that on Monday."
Alex Solis rides Hessonite, 12-1 on the morning line, from post position 9.