Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Dunbar Road the big favorite
This time a year ago, 3-yearold Dunbar Road was in the midst of an impressive streak. She’d won a first-level allowance and the Grade 2 Mother Goose by daylight margins and in her next start would take down the Grade 1 Alabama over the topshelf fillies Point of Honor and Street Band.
But 2020 is a different animal due to the coronavirus situation, and Dunbar Road is just now beginning her campaign in earnest. On Saturday, the Quality Road filly will make her second start of the year as a huge favorite in the Grade 2, $400,000 Delaware Handicap.
The Del Cap, which has been shortened a furlong to 1 1/8 miles, is supported by the Grade 3 Robert Dick Memorial and the $75,000 Dashing Beauty. Eight were entered in the Del Cap, but Vexatious and Always Shopping will instead run in the Ruffian at Belmont Park.
More than an inch of rain is possible at the Stanton, Del., track on Friday, according to Weather.com, and there is a 50 percent chance of thunderstorms Saturday.
While Dunbar Road’s name would fit comfortably among the Del Cap’s elite recent winners – Elate (2018-19), Songbird (2017), I’m a Chatterbox (2016), and Royal Delta (2012-13) – there are reasons to be hesitant. Dunbar Road’s Churchill Downs comeback win in the Shawnee Stakes was workmanlike, and while trainer Chad Brown typically dominates wherever he goes, that has not been the case at Delaware Park.
Brown is 1 for 10 at Delaware Park and hasn’t started a horse there since 2016. His lone Delaware win came with his first starter there, in an optionalclaiming race in 2010. His best stakes finish is a runner-up effort by Money Multiplier in the 2015 Kent.
Still, the Del Cap looks like an ideal spot for Dunbar Road, who has won over good and sloppy tracks. Brown has worked her five times since her May 23 comeback victory and is happy with how she has progressed since concluding last year with a third-place finish in the Spinster and a fifth in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff.
“She seems like she moved forward from 3 to 4 the way you’d like to see them do,” Brown said. “I think she appreciates a little time in between starts. Overall, she’s doing well.”
Dunbar Road wasn’t flashy winning the 1 1/16-mile Shawnee Stakes, but did everything necessary and should move forward. She didn’t break sharply and made a wide move on the far turn. She had to work to dispose of 27-1 Chocolate Kisses in midstretch, but was going away at the wire while winning by 1 3/4 lengths and earned a 90 Beyer Speed Figure.
Dunbar Road should enjoy the slightly longer distance of the Del Cap. Brown told Daily Racing Form he would have preferred if the race was its usual 1 1/4 miles.
Irad Ortiz Jr. has the mount since Dunbar Road’s regular rider, Jose Ortiz, will be at Keeneland on Saturday to ride Guarana for Brown in the Grade 1, $250,000 Madison.
The only other horse in the Del Cap coming off a win is Lucky Move, who had a breakout race for trainer Juan Carlos
Guerrero in the Obeah, the local Del Cap prep.
Lucky Move made a sharp move on the far turn and went on to win by 1 1/4 lengths while earning a lifetime-best Beyer of 93. She has since turned in a bullet five-furlong work at Parx Racing for Guerrero, who last year developed Spun to Run, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile.
Bellera, trained by Todd Pletcher, hasn’t put her best foot forward in two starts this year, but concluded 2019 by winning the Grade 3 Comely and Ladies at Aqueduct.
Gentle Ruler seeks Dick repeat
Gentle Ruler came into last year’s Robert Dick Memorial on a two-race winning streak and won the 1 3/8-mile turf marathon for fillies and mares with authority under a slick rail-skimming ride by Chris Landeros.
Not much has changed. Gentle Ruler has since won 4 of 6 starts, comes into the $125,000 Dick off a no-conditions allowance victory at Churchill Downs, and will have Landeros aboard Saturday in the Robert Dick Memorial. Trained by Ian Wilkes, she is a deserving favorite.
It took Gentle Ruler a year and eight months and 12 starts before she won a maiden race in March 2019. The 5-year-old daughter of Colonel John has now won seven of her last nine, including four stakes, and is 7 for 20 in her career. She is not proven over less-than-firm turf, however.
Her toughest rivals in the 10-horse field are Mrs. Sippy, who returns from an eightmonth layoff for Graham Motion, and Theodora B., who finished second in last year’s Dick Memorial.
Kentucky-bred, Europeanraced Mrs. Sippy won last summer’s Grade 2 Glens Falls at Saratoga in her first start for Motion. She came back to finish an excellent second to Sistercharlie in the Grade 1 Flower Bowl. Saturday will be her first start since a ninth in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf.
Motion would have liked to have gotten Mrs. Sippy back to the races sooner.
“We got delayed a little bit,” he said. “In Florida, she bumped her eye in her stall on a hinge, so we had to back off with her for several weeks and then we had the whole COVID issue, so here we are.”
Motion had a strong first half of the year, especially with his female turf runners. Mean Mary has won the Grade 2 New York, Grade 3 Orchid, and Grade 3 La Prevoyante. He brought Secret Message back from a 7 1/2-month layoff to win the Grade 3 Mint Julep. She is entered Saturday in the Grade 1 Jenny Wiley at Keeneland.
Theodora B., trained by Michael Dickinson, won a third-level optional-claiming race over good turf on June 26 at Laurel Park following a sixmonth layoff.
◗ The Dashing Beauty, a sixfurlong stakes for fillies and mares, will match Mid-Atlantic favorite Anna’s Bandit, a winner of 10 of 14 starts in 201920; A Bit of Both, who will make her debut for Brad Cox after being trained by Jason Servis; and Chalon, who was dull in the Vagrancy Handicap while returning from a layoff.