Champion filly Jaywalk gets blinkers for Delaware Oaks

Despite having two horses isolated on its grounds for health reasons, Delaware Park was able to fill nine Saturday races, including five stakes topped by the Grade 3, $300,000 Delaware Oaks.

Trainer John Servis has been pointing last year’s champion 2-year-old filly, Jaywalk, to the Delaware Oaks for two months and has decided to run her Saturday even though horses are being kept separate from the general horse population due to medical concerns.

“She’s ready to run, and there really is very little risk involved,” Servis said.

Jaywalk figures to be a heavy favorite in the 1 1/16-mile Oaks over six rivals, including Fashion Faux Pas, who earned a 97 Beyer Speed Figure last time out in winning the Light Hearted Stakes at Delaware, Ruthless winner Ujjayi, and the Jamie Ness-trained entry of Gotta Be Strong and Our Super Freak.

Delaware has isolated one horse from the general population since late last week. That horse tested positive for the strangles bacteria. A second horse, stabled in the same barn as the first before it was isolated, spiked a fever this week and is also being kept in isolation.

Test results on the second horse were not expected back until Friday, according to John Mooney, Delaware Park’s executive director of racing.

“I just got back from the isolation barn,” Mooney said Thursday morning. “Both of the horses’ temperatures have gone down.”

Strangles is a contagious upper-respiratory infection that can affect the upper airway and the lymph nodes of a horse’s head and neck. In response to the situation, a number of tracks, including all in the Mid-Atlantic, have stopped accepting entries from horses stabled at Delaware and have informed horsemen that if they ship a horse to Delaware, the horse will not be allowed to return.

After Jaywalk races, Servis said she will be sent to veterinary surgeon Patty Hogan’s farm in New Jersey, where she will remain until her home track of Parx lifts its shipping restrictions on Delaware.

After going 4 for 5 and winning the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies and Grade 1 Frizette at 2, Jaywalk is 0 for 3 this year. Servis will be adding blinkers to her equipment Saturday and has altered her training schedule. Jaywalk’s main summer objective is the Grade 1 Cotillion at Parx on Sept. 21.

“My plan is to race her twice before the Cotillion,” Servis said.

Although a second race has not been selected, the Grade 3, $150,000 Monmouth Oaks on Aug. 17 is one possibility, Servis said.

Jaywalk this year has finished fourth in the Grade 2 Davona Dale, third in the Grade 1 Ashland, and sixth of 14 in the Kentucky Oaks. Servis said “she’s done good all year long” physically and in her training, but “she hasn’t grown a whole lot,” and “she’s never been a big eater.”

Jaywalk has two works since the Kentucky Oaks, one on May 26 and the other June 12. Since then, Servis has substituted two-minute miles for quicker workouts.

“We’ve kind of gone back to the way we were training her before the Frizette,” Servis said. “I mean, if you drop her down to the rail, she’ll go in 59 easy, but maybe that’s not the right thing to do with her.

“She’s eating better now, too,” he added.

Servis said that Javier Castellano, who rode Jaywalk in the Ashland and Kentucky Oaks, suggested trying her with blinkers, as did her exercise rider.

“Javier said she might have gotten intimidated by those other fillies around her,” Servis said. “I’m just going to add a small French-cup blinker to put a little speed into her.”

Servis has given the mount to Joe Bravo. They will break from post 6.

Fashion Faux Pas, trained by Arnaud Delacour, switched from turf to dirt for the Light Hearted Stakes after finishing third in the Hilltop at Pimlico and second in the Mizdirection at Aqueduct.

In a visually impressive performance, she galloped her Light Hearted rivals into submission without being asked for her best. The Light Hearted was her second stakes victory on dirt. She won the Sandpiper sprinting at Tampa Bay Downs in December by four lengths.