Dark Nile ends long layoff in Foxy J.G. Stakes
Dark Nile, the winner of last year’s Delaware Oaks, will make her first start since August in the $100,000 Foxy J. G. Stakes at Parx Racing on Saturday.
The Foxy J. G. and the $100,000 Lyman Stakes, for 3-year-olds and up, are the first stakes of the year at Parx. The races, for Pennsylvania-breds at seven furlongs, came up especially strong this year.
Page McKenney will make his first start in 10 weeks in the Lyman. He bruised a heel while training in March.
Dark Nile scored her fourth consecutive win in the Delaware Oaks but emerged from her next start, the Grade 1 Alabama at Saratoga, with an ankle chip. She has worked nine times since Feb. 5.
“This looks like a good spot to bring her back,” trainer Arnaud Delacour said. “She is doing very well and has been pretty aggressive in her training.”
Delacour’s stable is back at the Fair Hill Training Center in Maryland after spending the winter at Tampa Bay Downs.
Delacour said A. P. Indian, a finalist in Eclipse Awards voting last year for champion male sprinter, came out of his second-place finish in the Grade 3 Commonwealth at Keeneland well and he plans to run him at Pimlico on Preakness Day in the Grade 3 Maryland Sprint.
“I would think he will be pretty tough in there,” Delacour said.
No Dozing, who rallied to finish third, beaten a neck, in the Grade 3 Lexington at Keeneland, will make his next start at Churchill Downs.
“I am pointing him to the Pat Day Mile,” Delacour said. “I want to try him at a one-turn mile.”
The Grade 3 Pat Day Mile, a $250,000 race for 3-year-olds, will be run on the Kentucky Derby undercard.
Divining Rod, who dropped a head decision to Connect in the Grade 1 Cigar Mile at Aqueduct in his 2016 finale, has rejoined Delacour’s stable after having a physical setback in Florida this winter.
“He has been back with us two weeks and is galloping,” Delacour said. “I hope to have him back to the races this summer.”