Gozzip Girl in the paddock before the Garden City Stakes.
If you follow the rule of majority then the odds are against Gozzip Girl winning the $500,000 G1 Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Keeneland on Saturday as the heavy favorite. There’s a couple of reasons why she should get beat but if you witnessed her last race then you hope she wins anyway.
In the Garden City as the 1 to 4 favorite, Gozzip Girl was the “lucky” because she got into trouble from the first turn to the 1/8th pole over the soft inside turf course in September at Belmont and finished the race. Normally, when a horse gets into trouble it’s considered unlucky for horse and hero alike but if you asked Kent Desormeaux he probably considers himself lucky to have finished the race.
Tomorrow’s QEII is a rematch between the very unfortunate Gozzip Girl and Miss World, the winner of the Garden City. The race also includes Shared Account who was second in the Garden City after setting disturbingly slow fractions for the first half mile and gets Edgar Prado back in the irons. And two from the Pucker Up including the winner Hot Cha Cha come in from Arlington.
The QEII isn’t a “win and you’re in” Breeder’s Cup Challenge so the race came up light in entries but the quality is definitely there.
She looked pretty professional in defeat last time out and look for Gozzip Girl to make amends as the Breeder’s Cup looms.