Cookie Dough recuperating from illness in Kentucky

MIAMI – Even though she was considered an outsider going into the race, trainer Stanley Gold was looking forward to trying his steadily improving Cookie Dough against the best of her division in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies earlier this month at Churchill Downs. Unfortunately, he never got that chance.

Two days after her arrival in Louisville, Cookie Dough contracted a fever, forcing Gold to withdraw the two-time Florida Sire Stakes winner from the Juvenile Fillies. Cookie Dough remains in Kentucky, where she’ll be allowed to completely recuperate from her illness before shipping to ownerbreeder Alan Cohen’s Arindel Farm in Ocala.

“She’s responding to the treatment, but it wouldn’t have been a good idea to ship her home until we knew the trip wouldn’t knock her back,” said Gold, who won the 2010 Juvenile Fillies with Awesome Feather and sent out Blonde Bomber to finish third in the race in 2017. “I wouldn’t call it a setback other than the disappointment of having to miss the Breeders’ Cup. She’ll go back to the farm for a little down time once leaving Kentucky, then be back here for the Gulfstream meet.”

Cookie Dough proved to be a mile the best of the local 2-year-old filly division this summer and fall while continuing to improve the farther she went. The homebred daughter of Brethren won the sevenfurlong Susan’s Girl division of the Florida Sire series by 6 1/2 lengths and was even more impressive in the 1 1/16mile My Dear Girl, winning by 7 1/2 lengths despite breaking from post 12 in a 13-horse field and getting hung out wide the entire trip.

“It was 39 degrees the first day she got to Churchill Downs, which was the Saturday before the race,” Gold said. “She walked on Sunday, then had a good gallop Monday. But by later that day she looked a little lethargic and we discovered she had a temperature of 103. Naturally, it was a big disappointment, but these things happen in this business. We might not make the first race [for 3-year-old fillies] at Gulfstream, but we hope to be able to move forward with her this winter to races like the Davona Dale and beyond.”

Delta Bluesman back locally

Thursday’s main event, a $47,000 optional-claiming dash at six furlongs, will mark the local return of the venerable Delta Bluesman, still going strong at the age of 8 for trainer Jorge Navarro.

Delta Bluesman is no stranger to Gulfstream Park West, having run here seven times while a maiden when the track was still known as Calder Race Course. He also competed in claiming races here as a 4-year-old and was claimed by Navarro for $30,000 out of a winning effort in October 2014. Delta Bluesman has since gone on to become a Grade 2 winner and compete in the 2016 Breeders’ Cup Sprint. He has lifetime earnings of more than $727,000, with 13 wins from 59 starts to date.

Delta Bluesman, who’ll compete under a $25,000 claiming tag Thursday, enters the race idle since finishing fifth and last against a high-level field of optional-claiming foes Sept. 29 at Belmont Park. He won the Rail Splitter starter allowance stakes across town at Gulfstream Park in February.

A field of 10 has been entered in the main event, although Musical Heart and Mr. Kisses are likely to scratch after finishing first and third, respectively, as main track-only entrants in Sunday’s headliner. That would likely leave Scam, Colormepompom, and Storming My Way as Delta Bluesman’s top competition along with the multiple stakes-placed 3-yearold Aequor.

Scam will be ridden by Paco Lopez, whose sensational five stakes-win performance on Saturday’s Sunshine Millions Preview card vaulted him into clear possession of second place in the jockey standings for the meet behind Edgard Zayas. One week earlier, Lopez had an even more memorable day when registering his first Breeders’ Cup victory aboard Roy H in the Sprint.