Trainer Rudolph Brisset finds himself trying to strike a delicate balance when it comes to Bodacious Bay, who will make her next start in Saturday’s Grade 3 Monmouth Oaks.

His filly has the least experience in the field with just three starts and is coming off a Maiden Special Weight win at Churchill Downs on June 26. But after she missed her 2-year-old campaign and then got a late start this year, he knows there’s an urgency now to getting her started on a more ambitious path.

“I’m chasing my tail with her without doing the wrong thing by her,” he said. “I’m trying to get her going because the big ones are coming up. Did I look out of the corner of my eye at the (Grade 1) Coaching Club America Oaks (on Saturday at Saratoga)? I did.

“But I think the Monmouth Oaks is a better fit for where she is right now.  I love this filly. I picked her out (for $350,000 at the Keeneland September 2024 Sale) for the owners (Storyteller Racing and Breffni Farm). But it has been one thing after another with trying to get her going.

“Can she handle this type of company? I think so. I would have preferred a 1x (allowance) but we cannot be as picky now.”

Ten fillies have entered the mile and a sixteenth feature at Monmouth Park, though three are cross-entered in the Coaching Club America Oaks – Zany, trained by Todd Pletcher; Miss Fulton Gal, trained by Michael Gorman, and Pashmina, trained by Rob Atras.

A few defections would be fine with Brisset, and would finally give him a small break with the Kentucky-bred daughter of Not This Time.

As she was preparing to make her 2-year-old debut last year, Brisset noticed something was off.

“We were having the last breeze with her last year, cooling her out jogging. We jog our horses cooling out to see how they walk,” said Brisset. “I just thought `she is not perfect.’ We X-rayed her and it turned out she had a very, very small beginning of a condylar fracture on her right front.

“So we ended up giving her the year off.”

Brisset’s hopes of an early spring start at Keeneland were dashed this year when the filly was a vet scratch before her debut race.

“That put us off scheduled again so we decided to send her to Oaklawn for her first race,” he said. “We know she wants two turns but we had to start her at six furlongs. She didn’t want any part of six furlongs but we felt she did exactly what we wanted her to do (finishing a late-running second).”

A second-place finish in Maiden Special Weight company at Churchill followed with another second place finish before she broke through with a four-length score at the track going a mile and a sixteenth – her first try around two turns.

All three races in her career have been on muddy or sloppy tracks.

“She is going to get better as she gets older. I think she is eventually going to make me look good,” he said. “This will be just her second time around two turns. We are curious to how she does on a dry track. She has already proven to us that she can run.

“Even if I think highly of her, which I do, I do not want to do wrong by her just to catch up. Do I think she is in over her head? No. I think she is ready to step up.”

Brisset, who spent more than a decade as an assistant to Hall of Famer Bill Mott before going out on his own in 2017, said Saturday will be a key step to see where he can take her this year.

The Grade 1 Alabama at Saratoga on Aug. 22 and the Grade 1 Cotillion at Parx on Sept. 19 are both on his radar.

“This will be a good test for her,” he said.