Cox barn looks to stay hot with Dontmesswithjoanne

The Brad Cox barn’s strong run through the Fair Grounds race meeting shows no sign of slowing on Saturday, when Cox sends out the very promising 3-year-old filly Dontmesswithjoanne.

Dontmesswithjoanne is one of 12 fillies (Legallini is entered for the main track only) in the sixth race, a one-mile turf race open to first-level allowance horses or $50,000 claimers. Entries for the race were taken last Wednesday, at which point only one barn on the backstretch had been quarantined because of the equine herpesvirus outbreak at Fair Grounds.

A barn that houses horses trained by Mike Stidham has since been quarantined, its occupants forbidden to race, which means Stidham’s two entrants, Stallion Heiress and Rickey’s Girl, will be scratched. Both scored turf wins at the meet, but Stallion Heiress was especially impressive, and her absence figures to make Dontmesswithjoanne a heavy favorite.

Cox, entering Thursday’s card, was the leading trainer at this meet and had done especially well on turf, going 13 for 33 through Dec. 31. Cox also has won four of the first eight turf stakes at this meet.

Dontmesswithjoanne, a Pioneerof the Nile filly owned by Zayat Stables, looked like a future stakes horse when making her career debut in a two-turn turf mile Nov. 26 at Churchill. Bumped after the start, Dontmesswithjoanne went from 11th, 10 lengths behind the leader, halfway through the race to a 5 3/4-length winner.

“I thought she would break sharp and kind of put herself in the race,” Cox said. “I never expected her to be as far back as she was, and when she broke the way she did, I was kind of taken back by it. Then she just took off. It was a little surprising the way she won.”

Dontmesswithjoane has worked four times since shipping to Fair Grounds, and Cox has seen nothing to suggest that her debut took anything out of the filly.

“We’re expecting a big race from her. It doesn’t look like she’s regressed at all to me,” Cox said.

Rum Go looks like the primary competition, having notched a Delaware maiden win and finished third behind the good fillies La Coronel and Lull at Keeneland in the Jessamine Stakes in her two grass races last year.

There are other allowance races and a noteworthy 3-year-old maiden special weight later on the Saturday card. Fairwell Tax Break scored a huge first-level Louisiana-bred allowance win last out and will be heavily favored in race 7, but race 8, a second-level turf-route allowance, has a full field and many chances. Race 9, at six furlongs for 3-year-old maiden fillies, attracted two sharp-working first-time starters, In Full Swing and Jenda’s Agenda.