STAKES ANALYSIS Small but strong field in Honorable Miss

By Jeff Scott SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. » Only five fillies and mares are entered in Wednesday’s featured Honorable Miss Stakes, but the $200,000 Grade 2 event makes up in quality what it lacks in quantity. The field includes two millionaires and three multiple graded winners. The latter three horses are all unbeaten in 2017.

Paulassilverlining is the morning-line choice at 6-5. The five-year-old Ghostzapper mare, runner-up in last year’s Honorable Miss, exits a pair of Grade 1 scores in Keeneland’s Madison Stakes and the Humana Distaff on the Kentucky Derby undercard at Churchill Downs. Paulassilverlining has won half of her 20 lifetime starts and has bankrolled over $1.371 million. She sports a 5-1-0 record from seven tries at the distance.

By the Moon is a $1.257 earner who has been victorious in four graded stakes, including the Frizette (G1) as a two-year-old. She has won both of her starts this year, the Bed o’ Roses (G3) and the Vagrancy (G2). One fact of note: the five-yearold Indian Charlie mare will be making her first start at six furlongs.

Also given support at 7-2 is Finley’sluckycharm, the only four-year-old in the field. The daughter of Twirling Candy has won all three of her 2017 starts, including a pair of Grade 3s, the Winning Colors Stakes and Chicago Handicap. Finley’sluckycharm is undefeated in five starts at six furlongs. Disco Chick (12-1), third in last year’s Honorable Miss, and Clothes Fall Off (6-1) complete the field.

Last year, the now-retired Haveyougoneaway swept the Honorable Miss and Ballerina (G1). The only other horse to do so since the turn of the century was the Maryland-based Dance to Bristol in 2013.