Tommy Jo and Iron Orchard face key Saratoga test in Victory Ride Stakes

Tommy Jo and Iron Orchard will use Saratoga’s Victory Ride Stakes as a hard-edged checkpoint, not a routine return, when the Grade 3 for 3-year-old fillies is run July 10 at 6 1/2 furlongs for a $225,000 purse. The 24th running of the race in Saratoga’s current era sits on the summer stakes ladder between the opening week at the Spa and the Aug. 8 Test Stakes, and it offers a quick answer on whether two of last year’s most accomplished juvenile fillies are moving forward or merely resurfacing.

Tommy Jo arrives with the Saratoga résumé that made her one of Todd Pletcher’s sharper young fillies. The Spendthrift Farm homebred by Into Mischief broke her maiden at Saratoga on July 26, 2025, then returned there five weeks later to win the Spinaway Stakes by 6 1/2 lengths on Aug. 30, a performance that secured a Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies berth. Spendthrift later tagged her as Into Mischief’s 53rd TDN Rising Star and his 26th lifetime Grade 1 winner, while Pletcher’s early read on the filly was that she was very talented. She has since had seven breezes since returning to the worktab in mid-May, a sign the barn has brought her back deliberately for a race that points straight toward the rest of the summer.

Iron Orchard’s path is just as instructive, if less straightforward. Now with Steve Asmussen, she was undefeated in three starts when KatieRich Stables paid $2.5 million for her in Fasig-Tipton’s digital flash sale in October 2025. Before that sale, she had won a maiden race and the Seeking the Ante Stakes by a combined 12 1/4 lengths, then took the Frizette Stakes by a nose. Equibase lists four works over the past month, with the latest coming June 30, as she prepares to return to one-turn dirt after a Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies effort that was compromised at the break and by kickback.

The field is deep enough to make this a real exam. Goodall comes off a June 4 Jersey Girl Stakes win by 2 3/4 lengths and gives Spendthrift another live runner, while Peach Tie brings unbeaten dirt sprint form after winning the Miss Preakness Stakes by 1 1/2 lengths on May 15. A Fine Chardonnay, Sneaky Good and Tessellate add more pace and depth to a race that has long had Saratoga value. Equibase lists Emma’s Encore’s 1:08.89 clock from 2012 as the fastest Victory Ride since 1976, and the race is named for Victory Ride, the 2001 Test Stakes winner, fitting for a sprint that can reset a filly’s summer campaign in one sharp run.