Dalika can go out in style in Pegasus Filly and Mare Turf
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Trainer Al Stall Jr. has made the occasional trip to Gulfstream Park for long-ago Breeders’ Cups and such, but his recollection of the only time he actually ran a horse here isn’t a very good one.
“The Pegasus, the mud,” Stall said Friday from his Fair Grounds base in New Orleans when recalling the 27-length drubbing of Tom’s d’Etat in the 2019 Pegasus World Cup, which was won over a very sloppy track by City of Light. “Really wasn’t all that much fun.”
Stall is hoping for a much better outcome next Saturday (Jan. 28) when Dalika makes the 32nd and final start of her career in one of three Pegasus events at Gulfstream. Following a breakthrough year in which she became a Grade 1 winner, the gray German-bred figures as one of the favorites in the Grade 3, $500,000 Pegasus Filly and Mare Turf at 1 1/16 miles.
“It’s been a lot of fun, especially this last season after we gave her the winter off,” said Stall. “She’s been a big, strong, sound mare, and we took some shots at some of the better races. It’s been way more than we ever expected. She was a little inconsistent in her earlier years, pretty hard to train, but she matured and became a Grade 1 winner,” referring to her triumph last summer in the Beverly D. at Churchill Downs.
Dalika, owned by Bal Mar Equine of retired Brown-Forman CEO Paul Varga, is a front-running type who has been first or second in 17 of 31 starts, all on turf, for earnings of more than $1.4 million. Brian Hernandez Jr., who has ridden Dalika in her last four races, will be in from New Orleans for the mount.
This will be just the second running of the Filly and Mare Turf, which debuted last year with Regal Glory winning convincingly as an odds-on favorite for Chad Brown. The Filly and Mare Turf, like the other two Pegasus events, is expected to be run with a capacity field of 12. Brown has one of the favorites for this renewal in Shantisara, with Irad Ortiz Jr. to ride.
Draws for each of the three Pegasus races will be shown on Gulfstream in-house television Sunday following races 2, 3, and 4. The balance of a 13-race Pegasus card that includes four other graded races will be available later in the day.
As of Friday, there were no substantive changes for Pegasus lineups updated earlier in the week, with the notable exception of the retirement announcement of Colonel Liam on Thursday. Colonel Liam won the last two runnings of the Grade 1, $1 million Pegasus World Cup Turf at 1 1/8 miles, but with his defection, there is no clear-cut favorite among a group expected to include City Man, Decorated Invader, Ivar, and Lady Speightspeare. This will be the fifth running of the Pegasus Turf.
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The marquee race is the seventh running of the Grade 1, $3 million Pegasus World Cup. In alphabetical order, these are the 12 expected: Art Collector, Cyberknife, Defunded, Get Her Number, Last Samurai, O’Connor, Proxy, Simplification, Skippylongstocking, Stilleto Boy, Super Corinto, and White Abarrio.
Final pre-race workouts were scheduled this weekend for most runners in each of the three Pegasus races. All horses must be stabled in the Gulfstream barn area by Wednesday afternoon.
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