NYRA/Adam Coglianese
By Sarah Mace
In a post-scratch field of seven with practically no speed signed on, an aggressive ride would appear the most likely route to victory in the $125,000 Mount Vernon Stakes that kicked off the stakes portion of Belmont’s Big Apple Showcase card on Memorial Day. Jockey Irad Ortiz, Jr. aboard 8-1 Feeling Bossy got the memo. Sharp out of the gate, Feeling Bossy led throughout and had enough left in the tank, not to mention the courage, to hold off the closers in the final furlong.
A 5-year-old daughter of New York sire Courageous Cat (Questroyal Stud), Feeling Bossy came into the Mount Vernon off a seven-month layoff for Jason Servis, who trains the mare for owner Michael Dubb.
Dubb claimed Feeling Bossy out of her penultimate start of 2017 for $62,500 from her breeder Emily Wygod and trainer James Jerkens. The Mount Vernon was the second start for her new connections and was a turnback from the longer distances she raced throughout 2017.
Dubb explained that he claimed Feeling Bossy to fill a gap in his roster.
“Now I had Fourstar Crook for years, but Fourstar Crook has graduated to open company so I was really looking for a replacement for us to run respectable races… I thought the [New York-bred female turf] division was a little thin.”
“[Feeling Bossy’s former trainer] Jimmy Jerkens is a great horseman,” continued Dubb. “It wasn’t like we were going to move up from Jimmy Jerkens. We were thinking this horse was at the end of her [2017] campaign. We’ll freshen the horse. We put her in [one final] race because it was there [last October 21], but the real claim was to freshen her for the spring campaign.”
Sharp out of the gate to go one mile over the “good” Widener turf course, Feeling Bossy quickly opened up two lengths on Frosty Margarita, who was the putative lone speed on paper.
Maintaining a daylight lead several paths off the rail through a first half in 48.77, Feeling Bossy stayed in charge and saved ground through the far turn. In the bend Jc’s Shooting Star advanced into second, while odds-on favorite Fifty Five endured traffic and a bump down near at the rail.
NYRA/Annette Jasko
In the home stretch Ortiz asked Feeling Bossy for her full effort. With a furlong to go, War Canoe loomed four-wide and Fifty Five overcame her troubles and threatened at the rail. Both were narrowing the margin to the leader.
Under pressure, Feeling Bossy hung tough, kept to her task and hit the wire a neck winner. After six furlongs in 1:12.77, the final time for the mile over the “good” grass was 1:36.42. [VIDEO REPLAY]
Irad Ortiz, Jr., who appeared to have a choice of mounts in the race but opted to ride Feeling Bossy today for the first time said, “She’s like that [speedy]. She doesn’t rate. She took charge and took me the whole way, she made me feel like she’d work the whole way, and when I asked her turning for home she was there for me.”
Said Dubb, “She was competitive. We thought she was going to need one. Credit to Irad. He saw the opening he saw that nobody went to the lead, she was fit enough to gut out a mile against a really good horse. Peter Brandt’s horse [Fifty Five] is really good.”
A winner of six of 15 races coming into the Mount Vernon, Feeling Bossy had tried stakes company four times before without a placing.
Wins for Feeling Bossy have come in bunches. Breaking her maiden on April 21, 2016 at Aqueduct, she followed up the following month with a state-bred allowance score. Three consecutive allowance victories came in her last race at two, and her first starts at three against open company. From 16 starts, she has won six times and earned $351,790.
Bred by Emily Wygod, Feeling Bossy is out of Keep the Feeling, a winning daughter of Kris S. who has produced four winners from six starters. After Feeling Bossy, her most successful offspring is a Benchmark gelding Field Report, who earned over $200,000. The mare last changed hands at public auction in 2010 when purchased at Barretts fall mixed sale by King River Ranch for $15,000.
Feeling Bossy has a full sister Feeling Cathy and full brother, 3-year-old Feeling Courageous. Her most recent reported foal is a juvenile colt by Twirling Candy named Stupify.
