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 owner-breeder 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 seven-furlong Susan’s Girl division of the Florida Sire series by 6 1/2 lengths and was even more impressive in the 1 1/16-mile 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.”