Big Sister Ridge may be alone on lead

Big Sister Ridge has a chance to make the lead, control the pace, and win her stakes debut Friday night at Prairie Meadows in the $45,000 Jack Bishop Stakes.

Big Sister Ridge was cross entered in the Prairie Rose Stakes on Thursday but is likely to be among the seven older fillies and mares set to contest the Jack Bishop over 1 1/16 miles.

Big Sister Ridge easily is the least-experienced horse in the race, her three starts being eight fewer than the next-lightest-raced filly, Strive. She won both of her races last summer at Prairie Meadows, a route and a sprint, and came back from a long layoff May 6 with a good second in a second-level sprint allowance at Prairie Meadows. Trained by Kenny Smith, Big Sister Ridge showed that she stays a route of ground last year at age 3, and with the sprint comeback fortifying her stamina, she would be worth a play at something close to her 10-1 morning-line odds to wire this field from post 2 under Shane Laviolette.

On paper, the only pace threat to Big Sister Ridge appears to be Strive, and she just does not seem to be as fast. Strive, who might be better on turf than dirt, shows two races in which she made the lead, and the pace was slow or relatively so in both of them.

Strive is one of two in the Jack Bishop for trainer Donnie Von Hemel, who also entered Ruby Sioux. Ruby Sioux’s best race, like her stablemate, came on turf, but she appeared to improve late in her 3-year-old season last year, and in her lone start this year, the Jan. 14 Pippin at Oaklawn, she faced the likes of Terra Promessa, who won the Grade 3 Allaire duPont Distaff last weekend at Pimlico after finishing second in the Grade 1 Apple Blossom.

Judge Lanier Racing and trainer Miguel Hernandez, the connections behind Preakness Stakes also-ran Conquest Mo Money, start Perfecta, but Big Sister Ridge beat her by more than three lengths in their common last start and has more upside than Perfecta.

Trainer Lynn Chleborad, already a 13-time winner at the Prairie meet, tries Cleverness in this minor stakes after the mare posted a second-level, two-turn allowance win May 12, and Cleverness at least is in peak form.

The race’s lone shipper is the Louisiana-bred Lunar Gaze, who comes in from Indiana Grand for trainer Tom Amoss. Lunar Gaze has toggled between route racing at the Delta bullring and sprint races at other venues and might not want to run quite this far – especially if she is chasing loose leader Big Sister Ridge.