Cordiality ends lengthy layoff at Del Mar on Thursday
The accomplished mare Cordiality, a multiple stakes winner against California-breds, returns to action at age 8 following a 56-week layoff on Thursday in Del Mar's fourth race, a 1 1/16-mile grass race for fillies and mares who have second-level allowance conditions, or, like Cordiality, can be claimed for $100,000.
Tim Yakteen, who trains Cordiality for owner Donnie Crevier, said Cordiality was bred earlier this year, “but she didn’t take.”
“So we gave her some time,” Yakteen said. She has a strong, steady series of works for her return as she seeks her 13th win in 35 starts.
Her rivals include Ivy League, who won a first-level allowance Oct. 16 at Santa Anita after trying graded stakes company in two of her previous three tries.
“I thought I’d try to work through another condition,” Ivy League’s trainer, Richard Mandella, said of running in this race as opposed to the Red Carpet on Thursday or Matriarch on Sunday.
* Jockey Kyle Frey got career win number 1,000 on Friday aboard the 2-year-old Tizlightning.
* Jockey Geovanni Franco announced on Twitter that he was relocating to Oaklawn Park for the start of that meeting Dec. 3, and that Hall of Fame jockey Gary Stevens would be his agent.
* Cairo Memories, ninth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf on Nov. 5 after winning her first two starts on grass, is expected to try dirt in the Grade 1 Starlet at Los Alamitos on Dec. 4. She worked a half-mile on the main track in 50 seconds on Sunday morning at Del Mar for trainer Bob Hess Jr.