No Show Sammy Jo Chasing Graded Glory in The Very One (G3)

Three-Time Turf Stakes Winner has Placed Twice in Graded-Stakes

HALLANDALE BEACH, FL – Eager to get Newstead Stables’ multiple stakes winner No Show Sammy Jo an elusive graded win, trainer Graham Motion will give the 6-year-old British-bred mare another try in Saturday’s $175,000 The Very One (G3) presented by DRF en Espa?ol at Gulfstream Park.

The 38th running of the 1 3/8-mile The Very One for older fillies and mares scheduled on the grass is the fifth of nine stakes, eight graded, worth $2.025 million in purses on a blockbuster program anchored by the $425,000 Coolmore Fountain of Youth (G2) for 3-year-olds on the road to the $1 million Curlin Florida Derby (G1).

Post time for the first of 14 races is 11:30 a.m. ET.

No Show Sammy Jo has run second in the 1 3/8-mile Long Island (G3) at Aqueduct each of the past two years, beaten just a nose following a wide trip in 2024 and 1 ? lengths after being bumped and shuffled back early in 2025. Her best finish in four other graded attempts was a distant fourth in the 2025 Glens Falls (G2).

“I think it would be really important for her to get a graded win,” Motion said. “I think she’s of the caliber that she can win a graded race.”

No Show Sammy Jo won the 1 1/8-mile All Along on the Laurel Park turf in 2024 and 2025 and captured Gulfstream’s Via Borghese at the course and distance Dec. 24. Most recently, she finished seventh in the 1 ?-mile Christophe Clement (G3) Jan. 24 on the Pegasus World Cup (G1) undercard.

“She was a bit a victim of the pace last time. She had a lot left to do and she made a big run, but they just didn’t come back to her,” Motion said. “She’s done great since. I just thought it seemed logical. This is the distance she won at the previous time and obviously a distance that she handles.”

Regular rider Jorge Ruiz gets the return call from outermost Post 9. They are favored at 9-5 on the morning line.

Motion, who won last year’s The Very One with Beach Bomb, will also send out Newstead’s Brazilian-bred For Flying (6-1 ML) in the 6-year-old mare’s return to grass following three straight races over Gulfstream’s all-weather Tapeta course. She ran third, beaten less than a length, in the 1 1/8-mile Key West overnight handicap Jan. 1 and came up empty in the one-mile, 70-yard South Beach overnight handicap Jan. 24. Twice Grade 3-placed on synthetic, For Flying owns four wins and two seconds in nine career turf tries including a Group 1 triumph in Brazil’s 2023 Barao de Piracicaba.

“Probably her grass races are better,” Motion said. “She was really unlucky at Keeneland last fall, had a difficult trip. I don’t know what to make of her last trip. I don’t know if I ran her back too soon but part of my thought of running her Saturday is I think she appreciated the mile and an eighth in her previous start so going a little further might actually help her. That was my inclination for trying this spot.”

David Egan gets the riding assignment from Post 5.

Miller Racing’s Venencia (Post 3, 6-1) will be racing third time for trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. after being purchased out of Keeneland’s November sale for $250,000 since becoming a graded winner in the 1 ?-mile Dowager (G3) the previous month. Sixth after pressing the pace in the Via Borghese, she ran fourth by 3 ? lengths when encountering trouble in the Clement.

“I thought she ran better the second time for us. She was kind of following my other horse [Ramsey Pond] and had to tap on the brakes and it cost her some momentum, but overall I thought it was a pretty good run. She finished up well and probably would have been second on the day with a cleaner trip,” Joseph said. “But we feel like it was something to build on and this race doesn’t appear as tough as the last one so hopefully she can run well.”

Racing first time for Joseph is Resolute Racing’s Dona Clota (Post 6, 8-1), whose North American debut came when 10th in the Pegasus Filly & Mare Turf (G2) last winter at Gulfstream for retiring trainer Ignacio Correas IV. Sent to Chad Brown, she was fifth in a 1 1/8-mile optional claiming allowance at Saratoga in late August before getting the rest of the year off.

Dona Clota joined Joseph’s string in late January and has breezed three times at Palm Meadows, Gulfstream’s satellite training facility in Palm Beach County, twice on its turf course. The 5-year-old mare won back-to-back Group 1 route races in her native country before coming to the U.S.

“We haven’t had her long. We got her a couple days after the Pegasus this year,” Joseph said. “She’s had a few works for us. Obviously, she comes with a big reputation from Chile. Her two starts in America haven’t been that good. She looks well [and] she looks happy so hopefully she can build on that and show the potential they said she had.”

Via Borghese runner-up Gallant Greta (Post 1, 12-1), ninth in the Clement; Just Basking (Post 2, 20-1), winner of the Iowa Oaks and third in the Alabama (G1) on dirt last summer; 2025 Ontario Colleen (G3) winner Candy Quest (Post 4, 5-2); Key West handicap winner Fantasy Performer (Post 7, 30-1) and Love Song (Post 8, 8-1), third last out in the Likely Exchange on the Turfway Park synthetic Jan. 10, complete the field.

In five seasons of racing between 1977 and 1981, The Very One won 22 of 71 career starts and more than $1 million in purses with eight graded-stakes wins including the 1981 Santa Barbara Handicap (G1) at Santa Anita. She also traveled to Tokyo later that year and finished third in the Japan Cup (G1).