She arrives with $2.5 million in the bank. She’s the race’s defending champion. She’s won 21 times in her glittering career.

So why is Free Like a Girl 5-1 on the morning line and the third choice in Friday’s $250,000 Misty Bennett Pink Ribbon Stakes at Charles Town?

That’s because presence of the last two Grade 2 Charles Town Oaks heroines, Vahva (3-5) and Mystic Lake (8-5). The former, the 2023 Oaks winner, has since won one Grade 2 and two Grade 2 races. The latter won the Grade 2 Inside Information earlier this year and arrives off minor stakes victories at Lone Star Park and Delaware Park.

A six-year-old El Deal mare trained by Chasey Deville Pomier who co-owns the talented distaffer along with Gerald Bruno, Jr and Carl J. Deville, Free Like a Girl has finished second three times in six winless starts this year. But she sports 21 wins and over $2.5 million banked from 52 career outings, all of which are the highest among the four horses slated for the Pink Ribbon.

She won the 2024 edition of the Pink Ribbon, two years after finishing second in the Charles Town Oaks in what amounts to her only two outings over the strip. That 2022 Oaks went to Society, who thereafter became a multiple graded stakes winner and bested Vahva in last year’s Grade 1 Ballerina at the Spa.

Still, Free Like a Girl is no stranger to Grade 1 foes, having finished second twice this year to reigning horse of the year Thorpedo Ann at Oaklawn Park, including in the Grade 1 Apple Blossom. All of her prior starts this year have come in graded stakes.

“She’s run very well this year and we’re really hoping at some point she gets a graded stakes win,” Pomier said on Wednesday. “She’s run well in her two previous starts at Charles Town, which is a lot like Delta Downs where she trains. They’re both smaller tracks and she seems to like it there. When I called the race office to enter her, I was surprised to hear that there were only three others in the race. But they told me no one else wants to run against the other two.”

Free Like a Girl won three more stakes after capturing the Pink Ribbon last summer, two of them at Delta Downs and two against fellow restricted, Louisiana-bred company. But her 2025 campaign has been comprised of traveling to face graded stakes foes with one race at Sam Houston, three more at Oaklawn Park and then her two most recent starts at Churchill Downs.

“She’s really made all of us proud, especially for a Louisiana-bred to be able to compete in graded stakes at Oaklawn,” Pomier said. “We’ve had a great time seeing her compete in those graded stakes and she’s really held her own. One day we definitely want her to get a graded stakes win.”

Brian Hernandez, Jr. will be in the irons.

Vahva, who won the 2023 edition of the Oaks, has since won the Grade 1 Derby City Distaff and a pair of Grade 2 races, the Raven Run at Keeneland and, last out, the Chicago at Churchill Downs.

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A five-year-old Gun Runner mare trained by Cherie DeVaux, Vahva owns a 7-3-3 slate and just shy of $2 million banked from 17 career outings and retains the services of Irad Ortiz, Jr.

Trainer Saffie Joseph, Jr. will saddle both Mystic Lake and Save Time (15-1). Like Vahva, Mystic Lake scored in the Charles Town Oaks in her only previous outing over the CT strip. Mystic Lake’s signature win since last year’s Oaks came in the Grade 2 Inside Information at Gulfstream Park, and she arrives off a win – at odds of 1-20 – in the Dashing Beauty at Delaware Park where she faced just two rivals. Tyler Gaffalione is named to ride.

Save Time will make her local debut and get blinkers on. Luis Saez will ride. She figures to be up against it in this field.

Free Like a Girl, Mystic Lake and Vahva have combined to win three of four starts and roughly $1.25 million at Charles Town. The Pink Ribbon will mark the first time they will face one another.

Free Like a Girl was a $5,500 auction purchase as a yearling, so she’s earned nearly $500 for every dollar spent in purchasing her. Pomier is looking forward to her mare’s upcoming challenge.

“She’s been training really well [at Ellis Park] and she likes the track,” she said. “There’s only four horses in there on Friday, but it came up really tough.”