Joyful Victory, Ravi's Song to Meet at FG

A match up between last year’s Kentucky Oaks favorite and last year’s New Orleans Ladies winner appears likely this Saturday at Fair Grounds.

In one corner, it’s Fox Hill Farms’ Joyful Victory, winner of Oaklawn’s Grade II Fantasy in 2011, and in another, it’s Mrs. Yoshio Fujita’s Ravi’s Song, heroine of the 2011 $100,000 New Orleans Ladies at Fair Grounds and a mare who worked a half-mile in 48.80 Sunday morning here. Those two are likely to face each other in Saturday’s 20th anniversary edition of the $75,000 Tiffany Lass Stakes for older fillies and mares.

However, those two are not alone. Jim Tafel’s Fighter Wing, Charles Fipke’s Seeking Sheba and Right Time Racing’s Street Storm are also on track for the 1 1/16-mile affair that serves as this coming weekend’s highlight at the Crescent City oval.

Joyful Victory is coming off a game second-place finish in her first start this year Jan. 11, which was also the first start of her career on grass, while Ravi’s Song, who couldn’t handle a yielding Stall-Wilson turf course in Fair Grounds’ $75,000 Blushing K. D. Handicap Dec. 17, returns to the main track after making her last four starts on the lawn, and those include runner-up finishes in Churchill’s Grade III Cardinal Handicap last fall, Monmouth’s Grade III Matchmaker last summer and Churchill’s Grade III Mint Julep last spring.

Fighter Wing was third behind Ravi’s Song in last year’s New Orleans Ladies and second behind that same rival in last season’s $60,000 Pelleteri Stakes here. Seeking Sheba ran third in last fall’s $100,000 HBPA Stakes over synthetic going at Presque Isle Downs and Street Storm won last year’s $60,000 Mardi Gras Stakes here in a race taken off the grass and run over a main track rated fast.