Miss Marissa, trained by Jim Ryerson, was a last-out third in the Grade 2 Beldame on October 10 at Belmont where she finished behind the victorious Royal Flag and Horologist, both of whom are entered in the Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Distaff.

When Miss Marissa captured the Grade 2 Delaware Handicap on July 10, it prompted Ryerson to try the 4-year-old daughter of He's Had Enough in the Grade 1 Personal Ensign seven weeks later at Saratoga, where she finished a distant eighth.

Ryerson said a good effort by Miss Marissa on Saturday would result in a start in the Grade 3, $250,000 Go for Wand on Dec. 4 at Aqueduct.

“I thought she battled well to try and be second in the Beldame and ran really well that day,” Ryerson said. “Hopefully, we can do well and then go to the Go for Wand from there going a flat mile. We made our mark going a little further than that, but it's in our backyard.”

Miss Marissa shipped to Pimlico Race Course to capture the Grade 2 Black-Eyed Susan last October. Ryerson said Miss Marissa has developed well into her 4-year-old season.

“Going from three to four, you like to see them get a little stronger, faster and have some more maturity in them,” Ryerson said. “I think she's done that. They don't always do that. We'll see how we finish the year and see what Mr. [Alfonso] Cammarota wants to do with her next year. Hopefully, we can finish the year well. She's sound and if she races well finishing up this year, I think he'll plan to race her.”

Ryerson said Miss Marissa, who has won over five different ovals, gets a lot out of her training at Belmont.

“The one thing that I've noticed is that she really likes to train here,” Ryerson said. “I was a little disappointed with how she trained at Saratoga and to have the results we had, but we've gone out of here and run a number of places and she's run well.”

Kendrick Carmouche will ride Miss Marissa from post 2.

Three-time winner Jilted Bride seeks to make the grade for Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen.

The ultra-consistent 4-year-old daughter of Wicked Strong has never finished out of the money in a dozen lifetime starts. She arrives off a runner-up effort in a seven-furlong allowance optional claimer on October 2 at Churchill Downs, which came three months after earning black type when third in the Lady Jacqueline at Thistledown.

“There's very few that try every race, and she is a model of consistency,” said Peter Bradley of Bradley Thoroughbreds, who owns Jilted Bride in partnership with Tim Cambron, Anna Cambron, Brady Carruth and Zane Carruth.

Bradley expressed optimism in Jilted Bride being competitive at graded stakes level.

“This race will tell us,” Bradley said. “She ran a very solid race in her comeback at Churchill. She certainly needed the race. She's a filly that has definitely matured and gotten better physically.”

Ruben Silvera will ride Jilted Bride from post 1.

Gibberish, trained by Saffie Joseph, Jr for e Five Racing Thoroughbreds, will attempt a fifth career win. The 4-year-old Lea filly earned graded stakes black type two starts back when second to Miss Marissa in the Delaware Handicap ahead of a fourth in the Summer Colony at Saratoga. Her last victory took place in the Treasure Chest last November at Delta Downs.

Gibberish will break from post 5 under Dylan Davis.

Completing the field are So Darn Hot [post 3, Manny Franco] and Firing Carol [post 4, Eric Cancel].

The Turnback the Alarm is carded as Race 3 on Saturday's 10-race program, which also includes the $200,000 Mohawk; the $100,000 Stewart Manor; and the $100,000 Chelsey Flower. First post is 12 p.m. Eastern.

America's Day at the Races will present daily coverage and analysis of the fall meet at Belmont Park on the networks of FOX Sports. For the complete broadcast schedule, visit https://www.nyra.com/belmont/racing/tv-schedule.

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The Journeyman Stud Juvenile, a mile-and-70-yard stakes for Florida-bred 2-year-olds on Tapeta, kicked off the stakes action on Saturday's 10-race program that also featured the $60,000 Khozan Juvenile Fillies Sprint, a six-furlong stakes for Florida-bred 2-year-old fillies, and the $60,000 Miami Beach, a mile overnight handicap for 3-year-olds and up.

Peter D, a son of He's Had Enough who is also owned by Blanco, saved ground into the stretch before overtaking pacesetter Mr. Rum Runner and drawing away to a comfortable victory in his first race around two turns and over an all-weather surface.

“A friend of mine offered him to me. The horse breezed pretty well over the Tapeta at OBS. He showed me the horse and I liked him and put an offer in and bought him,” Blanco said.

Peter D ($11) won at first asking in a $25,000 maiden claiming race over Delaware Park's main track Aug. 26, before finishing an even-fifth in the five-furlong Hollywood Beach on turf at Gulfstream last time out. The Florida-bred gelding ran a mile and 70 yards in 1:44.67 under Leonel Reyes to break through with a stakes victory Saturday. Mr. Rum Runner, a maiden with two in-the-money finishes going into his first race on Tapeta, held second, 2 ½ lengths ahead of C My Meister, the 2-1 favorite in a field of eight.

Peter D was Blanco's fourth winner from the 40 starters he has saddled since launching his training career last year.

The 40-year-old Blanco arrived in the U.S. from Venezuela in 2003. He rode 49 winners from 381 mounts during a career that included a seven-year break between 2005 and 2013.

“I've been breaking babies at OBS and I've been pinhooking. I'm still doing it,” said Blanco, who is currently training a stable of four. “I gallop. I break my horses. I do everything with the horses.”

In the Khozan Juvenile Fillies Sprint, Palm Beach Racing Partnership's She's So Beautiful ($12.20) wore down favored Sea Art with a determined stretch drive to prevail by a neck.

The Carlos David-trained daughter of Air Force Blue, who had won two of four starts going into Saturday's race, stalked the pace while racing three-wide before responding to Samy Camacho's urging in the stretch to win her stakes debut. She's So Beautiful ran seven furlongs in 1:25.28.

Sea Art held second under Emisael Jaramillo, a neck ahead of late-closing Demurely, who was ridden by Luca Panici.

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“You have to train the horses that you have and you try to do the best you can for the owners that you have,” Ryerson said of the in-between years. “Then at times a nice one comes along, I think we have an idea of what to do with them when we get them. But if you should ever think that it's a given to always have nice horses in the barn, you're in the wrong business!”

With the filly now pointing to the Grade 1 Personal Ensign near the end of the Saratoga meet, 68-year-old Ryerson is remembering to savor the experience along the way.

The trainer had to take his time developing Miss Marissa for owner Alfonso Cammarota, to whom Ryerson was recommended by Frank and Patricia Generazio three years ago. A New York-bred daughter of He's Had Enough, Miss Marissa needed four starts to break her maiden as a 2-year-old, then the pandemic last year caused major interruptions in the first half of her 3-year-old season.

Miss Marissa really started to put it all together last July, winning an allowance race at Ryerson's old stomping grounds of Monmouth Park to kick off a three-race win streak that culminated in the G2 Black-Eyed Susan at Pimlico in October.

“That all followed stretching her out to two turns, which really helped her,” Ryerson explained. “She then ran a pretty good second in the Ladies (Handicap) in January, got beat by a filly of Todd (Pletcher's), and I didn't think the track was to her liking at all that day. We had made up our minds to give her a break after that, and she's come back very well.”

After a five-month layoff, Miss Marissa ran second to Dream Marie in the listed Obeah Stakes at Delaware on June 9, then stepped up to capture the G2 Delaware 'Cap a month later by 1 ¼ lengths.

“You like to see a filly progress from three to four – she's gonna have to run faster and all – and I think you can see signs that she's doing that,” said Ryerson. “You have Letruska, Swiss Skydiver, some other fillies that ran a good bit faster than her last year, but she's narrowed the gap. I think she has controlling speed, she's not one-dimensional where she has to have the lead, but she can carry her speed and there aren't a lot out there that have done that.”

Miss Marissa wins the Grade 2 Delaware Handicap at Delaware Park.

He acknowledges that the Personal Ensign will be a big step up in class, but Ryerson thinks Miss Marissa is capable of continuing to progress in what will be her third start off the layoff.

“We're stabled here (at Saratoga) and she won here last year, so that goes into it,” the trainer explained. “I think her effort in the Delaware Handicap puts us there. It's a pretty big jump but I think it's time to try and make it, and we've got about six weeks to get ready for that.”

The Personal Ensign is a “Win and You're In” race which offers the winner an expenses-paid berth to the Breeders' Cup Distaff this fall at Del Mar. 

Should Miss Marissa earn a trip to the West Coast, it won't be Ryerson's first experience at the Breeders' Cup. He saddled the winner of the Breeders' Cup Juvenile in 1995: Unbridled's Song.

Later a champion sire, Unbridled's Song also won the 1996 Florida Derby and Wood Memorial before a well-publicized foot issue leading up to the Kentucky Derby. The colt wound up finishing fifth in the Run for the Roses.

Ryerson also had multiple graded stakes-winning millionaire Park Avenue Ball run in his hometown's Breeders' Cup World Championships at Monmouth Park. in 2007.

“I haven't had too many opportunities in the Breeders' Cup, but this filly, looking at her going into this year, I think if she can win a couple this year, she can get herself in that discussion,” Ryerson said of Miss Marissa.

No matter how this season pans out, Ryerson has come a long way from the 15-year-old kid who walked onto the Monmouth backstretch looking for a summer job. He became a well-known figure on the New Jersey circuit for several decades, but made the decision to move his stable to New York full time about 10 years ago.

“I was looking for a place that I could continue doing what I love doing; because of the lost dates in New Jersey, there were a lot of opportunities lost in the state,” said Ryerson. “My wife and all my kids still live in Monmouth County, along with all our grandchildren, so it wasn't an easy decision to make. 

“My wife understands, but she stays there while I work in New York because it keeps her happy, and I then try to be the grandfather I want to be. You try to make the time. It's not as much as I would like, of course, because it's hard sometimes, but it's doable.”

With 17 horses at Saratoga and another 13 at Belmont, Ryerson said he definitely still enjoys coming to work every morning.

“I know that I'm not getting any younger, but I love doing it and I think that I can offer clients a good option as a horse trainer. I'm probably as busy now, even though I don't have a huge outfit, compared to five years ago, 10 years ago, so I think it's been a good move (to New York).”

Besides, you just never know when the next good horse will walk into your barn.

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Miss Marissa, sixth last out in the Grade 3 Comely on November 27 over an Aqueduct track rated good, is the field's most accomplished entrant, having won the Grade 2 Black-Eyed Susan on October 3, Preakness Day, at Pimlico Race Course for trainer James Ryerson.

Miss Marissa, owned by Cammarota Racing, won just once in her first nine starts. But the He's Had Enough filly found a comfort zone when placed at longer distances, winning three straight entering the Comely, including 1 1/8-mile victories against optional claimers on August 13 at Saratoga and the Black-Eyed Susan, where she edged Bonny South by a neck over a fast track.

After tiring in the stretch in the Comely to cap her sophomore year, Ryerson said Miss Marissa has been training forwardly at Belmont in anticipation of her 4-year-old bow. She breezed four furlongs in 47.40 seconds on Wednesday over the main track.

“We're happy with her. She breezed real well yesterday,” Ryerson said. “We're excited about running. We're hoping we get a good track, but whatever we get, we'll try either way and hopefully she'll show up.

“We'll race here and then I think we'll give her a break after this, but hopefully we'll be seeing her at Belmont later on,” he added.

Jose Lezcano will pick up the mount for the first time since riding her to a fourth-place finish in the seven-furlong Wide Country last February at Laurel Park. The duo will break from post 4 with Miss Marissa carrying the 122-pound highweight.

“We decided to make a change and Jose knows her; he got to ride her going seven-eighths and he never had the chance to ride her in a two-turn race, so we're really happy to have him,” Ryerson said.

Jeff Drown's Smooth With a Kick has finished in the money in three of her last four starts, including a victory against allowance company going the Ladies' distance on August 9 at the Spa and a 3 ¼-length score against optional claimers at 1 1/16 miles on October 11 at Keeneland.

Trainer Chad Brown moved the Candy Ride mare up to stakes company last out in the Grade 2 Falls City going nine furlongs on November 26 at Churchill Downs. Despite finishing fifth, she posted an 86 Beyer, the highest in her 13 career starts, and has trained at Belmont since December. Smooth With a Kick will carry 120 pounds.

“She's real straightforward,” said Whit Beckman, an assistant to Brown. “No bad habits and nothing too tricky about the filly. You just take her out there and she does the rest. She's easy to be around and has a professional attitude. That makes a good racehorse.”

Manny Franco will ride from post 2.

Bass Stables' Thankful earned black type in her stakes – and Aqueduct Racetrack – debut last out and will look to build on that effort in returning to the Big A.

Thankful capped her sophomore campaign with a third-place effort in the Grade 3 Comely. The Todd Pletcher trainee did not race as a juvenile but posted a 2-1-1 mark in five starts during her 3-year-old season, breaking her maiden at third asking on August 20 at Saratoga before edging next-out winner Mrs. Danvers in a one-turn mile on September 27 when facing older horses at Belmont Park, netting a personal-best 89 Beyer Speed Figure.

The daughter of 2015 Triple Crown-winner American Pharoah will look to register the trifecta at NYRA-operated tracks in her second start at Aqueduct as she seeks her first stakes win.

Thankful, a $625,000 purchase at the 2018 Fasig-Tipton New York Select Sale, will have the services of meet-leading rider Kendrick Carmouche from the outermost post 7 and carry 120 pounds.

Ten Strike Racing's Lucky Move dispatched fellow New York-breds in consecutive stakes, starting with the Empire Distaff Handicap in October at Belmont and the Bay Ridge last out on December 13 at Aqueduct, and will face open company for trainer Juan Guerrero.

Bred by Maltese Cross Stables and Stonegate Stables, Lucky Move will make the first start of her 7-year-old year, with the veteran compiling a 7-7-4 record through 32 starts. Jorge Vargas, Jr. will be in the irons from the inside post [121 pounds].

Ujjayi, a T.L. Wise Pennsylvania homebred conditioned by Mike Maker, bested optional claimers at the Ozone Park-based track on December 13 and has half of her four career wins at the Big A. The Smarty Jones mare will break from post 6 with Trevor McCarthy aboard carrying 120 pounds.

Am Impazible earned the right to try stakes company after returning from a 10-month layoff with a win against allowance company on December 18 going a one-turn mile at the Big A. Overall, the Kelly Breen trainee has won her last four starts dating to November 2019, with all those victories coming at Aqueduct.

Owned by Richard Troncone, Jr. and Troncone, Sr., the New York homebred will have jockey Eric Cancel's services from post 5 and carry 118 pounds.

Bridlewood Farm's Bridlewood Cat is seeking her first win since 2019 and will be making her third consecutive stakes appearance for trainer Jonathan Thomas. Dylan Davis has the call from post 3. Bridlewood Cat will carry 118 pounds.

The Ladies Handicap is slated as Race 8 on Aqueduct's nine-race program, which offers a first post of 12:20 p.m. Eastern.

NYRA Bets is the official wagering platform of Aqueduct Racetrack, and the best way to bet every race of the winter meet. Available to horseplayers nationwide, the NYRA Bets app is available for download today on iOS and Android at www.NYRABets.com.

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Miss Marissa was keen early alongside of Mizzen Beau, the pair a length ahead of the rest of the field through early fractions of :23.10 and :46.61. Meanwhile, the favored Bonny South was last of the 10-filly field after being squeezed back a bit at the start (the G1 Alabama runner-up has a late-running style anyway, so it may not have compromised her chances).

Rounding the far turn, Miss Marissa took command from Mizzen Beau and grabbed a two-length lead into the lane. Bonny South weaved in and out of horses to be about six lengths off Miss Marissa at the head of the stretch, but it took her about a sixteenth of a mile to find her best stride.

Bonny South really started to close in the final sixteenth, and Miss Marissa briefly looked in trouble before Centeno asked his filly for just a bit more. Bonny South was able to cut the distance to a neck in the shadow of the wire, but had to settle for second as Miss Marissa got her first stakes victory.

Hopeful Growth closed to finish third ahead of frontrunning Mizzen Beau in fourth.

Bred in Kentucky by Woodford Thoroughbreds, Miss Marissa is out of the winning Arch mare Ardara. She was an $11,000 yearling at the OBS October sale, and required four starts to break her maiden as a 2-year-old. She finished off the board in two graded stakes efforts last year, but returned as a 3-year-old to be third in the listed Ruthless Stakes in January. Recently, the filly won two straight allowance races, one at Monmouth and another at Saratoga, prior to stepping back into graded company.

Overall, Miss Marissa has four wins from 12 starts for earnings of over $320,000.

Winning Trainer James Ryerson (Miss Marissa) – “She's fairly fast. The fractions are going to be fast with her up near the lead, so I wasn't too concerned [with the early fractions]. She ran great.”

“Last year, I thought she wanted two turns and she made a liar out of me. It was ugly. But [this year] ever since we got a two-turn race at Monmouth she just moved forward in the race we got in at Saratoga. It was a small field but there were some nice horses in there. She ran fast, and then you look for a tougher spot. She answered today.”

Winning Owner Alfonso Cammarota (Miss Marissa): “This is my biggest win, but I have won other races with other horses.”

“I knew she was going to win. I do a lot of background on the horses when I buy them. I buy the horses personally. I do a lot of background on the siblings. Her mother won a race at a mile and a quarter and I knew she was going to be good. She proved it today. My research paid off.”

Winning Jockey Daniel Centeno (Miss Marissa): “The plan was to try to break sharp, get a good position and try to go easily from there. If someone tried to go to the lead we wanted to make sure that we were very close and make sure that she was really comfortable. She broke really sharp, I saw the inside horse go and I let her go. She sat off her practically all the way around. When I asked her she responded very well to the end.”

Jockey Florent Geroux (Bonny South, 2nd): “Horses that are deep closers sometimes you need some luck. She ran a great race. She finished the fastest. Today, we couldn't catch the winner.”

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