Stakes winner Jewels Forreal will make her 2019 debut this Friday (Feb. 1) at the Meadowlands Racetrack; and not only is it the pacer’s first race of the season, it will be her first race for owner Bill Donovan and trainer Kyle Spagnola. Donovan bought Jewels Forreal nine days ago for $85,000 at the Tattersalls January Select Mixed Sale (for a recap, click here).

A daughter of So Surreal out of Dandys Jewel, the four-year-old mare has won eight of 33 career races and has hit the board a total of 24 times. Her top wins last year came in divisions of the Circle City Stakes and Tompkins-Geers Stakes and the elimination for the Lismore Pace. She was trained previously by Ron Burke and earned $181,473.

Jewels Forreal will enter Friday’s race off a second-place finish to Go West Go Fast in a qualifier on January 19 at the Meadowlands. She was timed in 1:53.3.

She will start from Post 5 in a seven-horse field with Yannick Gingras in the sulky. She is 8-1 on the morning line. Divas Image, a six-year-old who won last season’s Golden Girls at the Meadowlands, is the 2-1 early favourite.

“Her qualifier looked pretty good,” Spagnola said about Jewels Forreal. “I don’t know if she’s going to be as tight as the rest of them, but she seems like a good horse. She’s done everything I’ve asked of her.”

After winning her Circle City division in October at Hoosier Park, Jewel Forreal spent the remainder of her 2018 campaign at the Meadows, where she held her own against older foes in the Fillies and Mares Preferred Handicaps. In five races in that class, she posted one win, two seconds and a third.

Spagnola plans to get Jewels Forreal two starts prior to the February 15 deadline for stakes payments. She also could be pointed toward the Mares Open at Saratoga later this year.

Jewels Forreal has won at least one race on each a half-mile, five-eighths-mile, and seven-eighths-mile track. Friday will mark her first race on a one-mile oval. Her career-best win time, 1:51, came at five-eighths-mile Tioga Downs in the Tompkins-Geers.

“We’ll see how she comes back as a four-year-old,” Spagnola said. “I’m sure if she steps her game up we would stake her to some things. I can get two starts in her before we really have to look at anything. I think in the next two weeks we’ll be able to find out more before we have to make any decisions.”

Regardless of where she ends up racing, Spagnola is happy to have Jewels Forreal as an addition to his stable. Spagnola has about 20 horses at the moment.

“I like these kind,” Spagnola said. “She definitely acts like a racehorse.”

(USTA)