Cookie Dough uses change in style to win Royal Delta

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – A front-runner through most of her career, Cookie Dough may have found a new dimension while becoming a graded stakes winner, rallying from off the pace to a three-quarter-length decision over Golden Award in Saturday’s $150,000 Royal Delta over a sloppy track at Gulfstream Park.

Trained by Saffie Joseph Jr., Cookie Dough was taken back off pacesetter Tweeting by Paco Lopez during the early stages of the Grade 3 Royal Delta, a 1 1/16-mile race for fillies and mares. Racing wide and a bit rankly once settling into the backstretch, Cookie Dough readily overtook the leader approaching the three-eighths pole. She fanned even wider carrying Golden Award out entering the stretch before digging in gamely and holding that one safe under vigorous handling in the run to the wire.

A claim of foul by jockey Tyler Gaffalione aboard Golden Award against the winner for alleged interference into the stretch was disallowed.

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Golden Award, a multiple Grade 3 winner, raced well placed from the outset, advanced outside horses on the second turn, was carried out by the winner, and surged late once finally changing leads inside the sixteenth pole to best Queen Nekia by a nose for second. Queen Nekia, who is also trained by Joseph, loomed up inside horses to briefly gain the second spot near midstretch but hung a bit while racing in the deeper going near the rail.

Cookie Dough paid $5.20 as the favorite in a field of six fillies and mares that also included Coach Rocks and Restless Rider, who finished fifth and sixth, well behind the leaders.

Alan Cohen’s Arindel Farm owns Cookie Dough, a homebred daughter of Brethren who had been second or third in graded stakes over the last 11 months. She also won the final two legs of the 2018 Florida Sire Series while with her former trainer Stanley Gold.

Cookie Dough was running for the first time since being transferred to trainer Joseph’s barn following her second-place finish behind Pink Sands in the Grade 3 Rampart on Dec. 14.

“I’m very proud of her,” said Joseph, who credited Gold with “doing a great job with her.”

Joseph said it wasn’t necessarily his idea to take Cookie Dough back off the pace in the Royal Delta.

“Paco came into the paddock and said he wanted to sit second,” said Joseph. “I told him not to pre-meditate it, to play it off the break, but as things turned out it was a good spot to sit. She got a little rank. But when she ran in the last race of the Stallion Series as a 2-year-old she was drawn in the 12 hole, was eight wide on the first turn, and was able to win from off the pace. I know it was lesser horses, but she can rate, and I think that will make her a better horse down the road because she doesn’t have to go the whole way.”