Sacred Goddess Aims for first Stakes Win in Joseph A. Gimma

Icon Racing Stable, Team Penney Racing, and Peter Dorsman Racing’s Sacred Goddess will try to win her first stakes race in Friday’s $150,000 Joseph A. Gimma.This is a six-furlong turf sprint for New York-bred two-year-old fillies at Belmont at the Big A.

Trained by Jeremiah Englehart, Sacred Goddess recently finished 4th out of 5 in the 5 1/2-furlong Bolton Landing against tougher competition on August 17 at Saratoga Race Course. The bay filly was slow to start but finished well, ending up 3 1/4 lengths behind Snow Face Princess, who later finished second in the Untapable on September 7 at Kentucky Downs.

Sacred Goddess won her first race, a 5 1/2-furlong sprint, on july 17 against other New York-breds at the Spa. She was fourth early on, four lengths behind, than made a strong move on the outside to win by a neck against Trading Trouble, who is also running in this race.

The Joseph A. Gimma used to be run at seven furlongs on the main track.

“Moving the Gimma to the turf is probably good for us,” Englehart said. “I think Sacred Goddess will be a better turf horse overall. She’s running against New York-breds again, but there are a couple of tough horses in the race. She should be ready.”

Sacred Goddess earned a career-best and field-best 73 Beyer Speed Figure in the Bolton Landing, up from a 68 in her first race. She will start from post 9 with jockey Ricardo Santana, Jr.

“she’s mostly gotten stronger,” said Englehart. “After we bought her as a two-year-old, I thought she lost some muscle when she started training at Saratoga. She seems to have gotten it back,which is a good sign.”

Sacred Goddess prepared for the race with a half-mile workout in 50.02 seconds with Tricky Temper, a filly who has already won two stakes races, on September 12 at Saratoga’s Oklahoma dirt training track.

“She had her last workout [Friday] with Tricky Temper, who is a good horse to work with in the mornings,” englehart said.