For a race in which she so easily towered on paper once her stablemate scratched, the start of the 2018 Pretty Jenny Stakes could hardly have been more difficult for Jean Elizabeth.

Unraced since a tour de force victory in an allowance optional claiming race at Hawthorne last October, she was fractious in her long-awaited return to a starting gate on race day.  “The gate guy was trying to get her head pointed straight ahead,” recalled jockey Julio Felix, “but when he got her straight she lunged and hit her head, hard, on the gate.”

From there, things went far better for the Larry Rivelli trainee.

Read on at Picks and Ponderings.