The consistent Sacred Wish heads to the Jenny Willey Stakes at Keeneland

The Not This Time filly faces a tough field of rivals this Saturday, racing 1700 meters on the turf.

Sacred Wish always gives her best/ ADAM COGLIANESE / NYRA

LEXINGTON, Kentucky (Special for Turf Diario) – Black Type Thoroughbreds, Swinbank Stables, Steve Adkisson, Christopher Dunn, and Anthony Spinazzola are all-in once again this Saturday with Sacred Wish, who will be aiming for her second G1 victory in the demanding 37th edition of the Jenny Wiley Stakes (G1), set at 1700 meters on Keeneland's turf course and offering a purse of $650,000 for fillies and mares aged 4 and up.

“She traveled great, looked good in the paddock, and keeps improving,” commented Blair Golen, assistant to George Weaver, trainer of the Not This Time filly, who splits her training time between Florida and New York but is under Golen’s care when she hits the road.

The only G1 winner and millionaire in the nine-horse field, Sacred Wish enters the Jenny Wiley off a solid performance as the runner-up to this Saturday’s rival Be Your Best (Muhaarar) in the TAA Pegasus World Cup Filly and Mare Turf Invitational (G2) at Gulfstream Park.

“She ran excellent in the Pegasus, came flying late, and nearly won,” Golen explained. “Johnny (John Velazquez) and she make a perfect team.”

The Puerto Rican jockey, who will once again ride her, also guided her to victory in the Matriarch Stakes (G1) at Del Mar last December, where she defeated none other than Gina Romantica (Into Mischief), a triple G1 winner at Keeneland.

Sacred Wish’s first seven starts were on dirt before she made the switch to turf, a surface on which she has clearly found her best form. “That’s one of the luxuries Saratoga offers—you can train on turf. And in her first workout there, she was excellent,” Golen said.

Less than three weeks after that workout, Sacred Wish won the Winter Memories Stakes (L) at Belmont at Aqueduct, also with Velazquez aboard. Since then, she has never left the turf, where she boasts a record of 11-3-4-2.

This Saturday, she could face a slightly softer turf, due to the rain that has fallen throughout the week in Lexington. “We’ll see how she handles it. She’s gone fairly well on soft tracks before, but she’s a much more complete horse today than she was back then,” Golen concluded.

Be Your Best is her primary rival, aiming to repeat her Gulfstream Park result, and both Jabaara (Exceed and Excel) and Kehoe Beach (Omaha Beach) could pose challenges, along with Excellent Truth (Cotai Glory), who makes her northern debut after finishing second in the French Prix Rothschild (G1), and the English filly Choisya (Night of Thunder), who recently won the Cape Verdi Stakes (G2) and Balanchine Stakes (G2) at Meydan, Dubai, UAE—two of the most prestigious races for fillies during the International Carnival.

In short, a thrilling race is expected at Keeneland.