Dixie Belle rings for 8 fillies
Eligible to be represented in any Oaklawn stakes race, Steve Asmussen and Brad Cox aren’t the only major players in the $150,000 Dixie Belle today.
With a record-tying three victories in the eight-horse race for 3-year-old filly sprinters, Asmussen can notch his 100th Oaklawn stakes triumph with Twirled. The Hall of Fame trainer and 12-time Oaklawn champion started Friday eight career victories short of 10,000, padding his North American standard. Twirled, listing Isaac Castillo aboard, comes off a Dec. 31 victory on Oaklawn’s first all-juvenile card.
Cox sends out three-time winner Key of Life for local client Staton Flurry and Texan Gregory Hoffman. A twotime Eclipse Award-winning trainer, Cox chose the six-furlong Dixie Belle instead of the Grade 3 Forward Gal Feb. 3 at seven furlongs in south Florida.
“We just weren’t quite ready to go to Gulfstream and face that group,” said Cox, who won the Kentucky Oaks in 2020 with Flurry’s She dares the devil, an Eclipse Award finalist, and has the owner’ s graded winner Interstate day dream nearing her 4- year-old bow.
Flurry had instant success with Key of Life after paying $350,000 at the Ocala Breeders’ Sales spring event for 2-year-olds in training, the Mo Town filly wiring the field by 6 3/4 lengths in the $200,000 Myrtlewood Oct. 28 at Keeneland and the Dixie Belle distance.
Flavien Prat thinks enough of the Cox filly to come back, together winning the Smarty Jones Jan. 1 with 3-year-old colt Victory Formation and the one-mile Martha Washington Jan. 28 with 3-year-old filly Wet Paint. Adding Lasix, Key of Life is 7-5 program favorite from post three.
Trainer John Sadler is here with an-
other OBS graduate, Stone Silent ($410,000), after the Adios Charlie colt went through rigorous training at Santa Anita. Sadler, who trained Horses of the Year Accelerate and Flightline, won a February 2020 maiden race here with debut runner Edgeway, a graded winner the next two years for main client Hronis Stable.
Sadler’s skills with a comebacker will be tested here, Stone Silent off since winning her debut, the $100,000 Debutante June 18 at five furlongs. She then got more than 90 days off to heal a minor knee problem before returning to the work tab Dec. 3.
“It’s a tough field,” said Sadler, a Grade 1 Apple Blossom Handicap winner locally with racemare Stellar Wind. “It’s a good field, but she’s a nice filly. She’s only got one start under her, but you can see by her works she’s training forwardly, so we’re anxious to get started.”
Former Oaklawn regular Ramon Vazquez, now in California, returns to board Stone Silent, 3-1 third choice from post four.
Chris Hartman, strongly bidding for his second Oaklawn training title, seeks a third meet victory from Klassy Bridgette, from the first crop of Grade 1 winner Army Mule. A six-length allowance winner Jan. 13, Klassy Bridgette is early 6-1 choice from post two in a field of eight.
“Tough race,” Hartman said. “You’ve got horses coming in from California and that Cox horse to deal with. Got our work cut for us; we’ll see what she’s made of.”
Another California visitor, Parody, is back with Rodolphe Brisset after running fourth for Bob Baffert in a Grade 3 race Jan. 8 at Santa Anita. Parody, with Ricardo Santana Jr. up, is also entered in Sunday’s eighth race at Oaklawn, a $104,000 entry-level allowance sprint. Brisset has a meet victory with 2022 Grade 3 Fantasy winner Yuugiri.
The Dixie Belle, race nine of 10 on a card starting at 12:30 p.m., is set for 4:42 p.m.
The program next week includes a Presidents Day card Feb. 20 with no stakes race. Older horses go a mile and sixteenth in the Grade 3 $600,000 Razorback Handicap two days earlier. Then comes a stakes tripleheader Feb. 25 with the Grade 2 $1 million Rebel, the Grade 3 $300,000 Honeybee and the $150,000 Carousel. With both mile-and-sixteenths for 3-year-olds, the Rebel is a qualifying race for the Kentucky Derby and the Honeybee for the Kentucky Oaks (fillies).