“I thought it was impressive,” Delacour said. “She stumbled pretty bad coming out of the gate, so it probably cost her a little bit. She’s obviously not as seasoned as the other fillies. It was only her second race, so being able to dig in like that against winners was a pretty game performance in my opinion.”

Breaking from Post 1, Sosua overcame her stumble when the doors opened to ride the rail to the lead, setting fractions of 23.03 seconds for the opening quarter-mile and 46.03 for the half under mild pressure to her outside by Be Present. Sosua was still in front after going five furlongs in 58.31 when Pretty Edgy ranged up on the outside, forged a short lead inside the eighth pole but was outrun to the wire. It was another 4 ½ lengths back to Map of America in third.

“First time out, I liked her in that spot because I didn’t think it was the strongest bunch,” Delacour said. “Today was, to me, a much better race. She answered some questions today and I think that was a pretty good performance.”

Sosua was purchased for $260,000 as a yearling in September 2018 and went unraced at 2. She is a half-sister to Grade 3 winner Girl Daddy, who ran third to 2020 champion 2-year-old filly Vequist in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1) last fall at Keeneland.

“It’s definitely a nice family,” Delacour said. “She had some setbacks at the beginning and that’s why she had a slow start, but she’s a nice filly. She’s kind of a very tall filly. She did a lot of growing, pretty much in the last six months, and I think she really needed that time to come into herself.”

Delacour said he had not looked beyond Thursday’s race, but hinted Sosua may stretch out for her next start.

“We’ll have to see what the best thing to do is, see how she comes back. At some stage we would imagine trying her two turns,” he said. “She got it done very well today and she’s got obviously plenty of tactical speed so that could be a nice weapon. I think with that second race under her belt, she might be ready to do that now. We’ll see how she comes back, but that would be something to consider.”