Dean Delivers should do just that in Rumson

When Dean Delivers showed up at Monmouth Park at the end of May, he hadn’t raced in two months, hadn’t won in 11 months, and, five months into his 5-year-old season looked like a sprinter in decline.

How times have changed.

Dean Delivers in that May 27 race, the Mr. Prospector, walloped seven rivals, winning by eight lengths. When he returns to Monmouth for the $100,000 Rumson Stakes on Sunday, he comes riding a three-race winning streak.

If form holds, Dean Delivers will make it four in a row. Six oppose him in the Rumson, and none will keep Dean Delivers from the winner’s circle if the gelding delivers a performance like his last three.

Bred in Florida and campaigned there for nearly his entire career, Dean Delivers had gotten a change of scenery before the Mr. Prospector, moving north and into the Delaware Park barn of trainer Ned Allard. After the Mr. Prospector, Allard made no claims of a magic elixir, hinted at no tricks of crafty conditioning, merely saying that he believed Dean Delivers had gotten hot by getting out of the Florida heat.

From the Mr. Prospector, Dean Delivers raced out of his own Delaware stall and won a $125,000 stakes race July 8. A relatively quick 20-day turnaround into the $150,000 De Francis at Laurel Park might have taken a little starch out of the gelding, but he still captured the De Francis by three-quarters of a length, posting a 98 Beyer Speed Figure, just one point shy of his career best.

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The De Francis second, Five Dreams, returns for the Rumson, but where Dean Delivers has gotten a month between races, Five Dreams squeezed in another start, an Aug. 11 allowance race win at Laurel. His De Francis looks aberrant. Dean Delivers is showing staying power.

No one needs to stay very far in the Rumson, an unusually short dirt sprint at five furlongs. That’s no deal-breaker for Dean Delivers.

Bred and owned by Stonehedge, Dean Delivers won his career debut by more than seven lengths while making his lone start over this abbreviated trip. The gelding has plenty of speed – as his breeding suggests. Dean Delivers is by the sprinter Cajun Breeze and out of Slick and True, by Yes It’s True, winner of the 1999 De Francis Dash when the race had Grade 1 status, posting a 106 Beyer in so doing.

Dean Delivers almost has to come from off the pace Sunday. He breaks from post 2 and there is speed on the rail and several more pace players to his outside. Stalk-and-pounce trips have worked for Dean Delivers in the past. And in his peak summer form – who knows how long it lasts – Dean Delivers should rule the Rumson.

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