Daring Dancer well rested for Wonder Again Stakes

ELMONT, N.Y. – Mother Nature may have done Daring Dancer a favor when her heavy rains forced Pimlico to move the $100,000 Hilltop Stakes on May 16 from turf to dirt. It gave the 3-year-old Daring Dancer nine more days to get over her hard effort in the Grade 3 Appalachian Stakes on April 17.

Now, Daring Dancer will have had 38 days between starts when she runs in Sunday’s $200,000 Wonder Again Stakes at Belmont Park. The Wonder Again, scheduled for 1 1/8 miles over the inner turf course, is the local prep for the $1 million Belmont Oaks Invitational on July 5.

The Wonder Again will be the second start of the year for Daring Dancer, a daughter of Empire Maker who is undefeated in three career starts. In the Appalachian, her first start since October, Daring Dancer split horses adroitly in upper stretch and drew away authoritatively under Alan Garcia to record a 2 1/2-length victory.

“The extra week is probably to her benefit after running such a big effort off the layoff,” said trainer Graham Motion.

Daring Dancer has been lightly campaigned this year on purpose, Motion said. She showed great promise last year, and Motion wanted to have a fresh filly for the major 3-year-old filly turf stakes this summer and fall. The Belmont Oaks is really the Grade 1 Garden City moved to the summer.

“I didn’t want to bring her to Florida,” Motion said, noting that the filly stayed at Fair Hill in Maryland all winter. “I pointed for a spring campaign so she could be around all year.”

Daring Dancer will break from post 4 under Garcia in the seven-horse field.

Among the challengers is Recepta, owned by Phillips Racing and trained by Jimmy Toner, the same connections who campaigned the multiple Grade 1 winner Wonder Again. Recepta, a daughter of Speightstown, won the one-mile Chelsea Flower Stakes impressively here last fall. In her only start this year, Recepta finished third behind Daring Dancer in the Appalachian. In that race, Recepta, despite breaking from the rail, had to rally six wide in the stretch and was outfinished by Daring Dancer and Sweet Acclaim.

“She ran okay,” Toner said. “I was a little disappointed. She got a little tired the last part of it.”

Recepta will be reunited with Junior Alvarado, who won twice aboard her last fall, and will be getting Lasix for the first time. She will break from the rail.

Trainer Christophe Clement sends out the uncoupled entry of Courtesan and Sea Queen. Courtesan won a Florida-bred stakes at Gulfstream before running fourth against males in a stakes at Tampa Bay Downs on April 5.

Sea Queen enters off a three-quarter-length victory in an April 23 allowance at Keeneland. Lawn Party, third in that race for trainer Todd Pletcher, also is in this field.