Dean Delivers shows surprising speed in Smile Sprint score
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Dean Delivers may have even surprised his trainer, Michael Yates, when making the lead despite a bit of a tardy beginning in Saturday’s $100,000 Smile Sprint.
But the impromptu strategy proved a successful one after Dean Delivers registered a popular and decisive 2 1/4-length victory in the Grade 3 summer fixture at Gulfstream Park that is part of the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Dozen and offered a bonus bankroll that can be applied to pre-entry and entry fees for this year’s Breeders’ Cup.
Dean Delivers has been racing from off the pace while competing at distances ranging from seven furlongs to a mile throughout 2023. The Florida-bred had held his own on several occasions with graded stakes company before finally notching his first win of the season against statebred competition in the seven-furlong Big Drama Stakes in his previous start.
Dean Delivers ducked in a bit at the start breaking from the rail with Emisael Jaramillo aboard, coming away near the rear of the eight-horse field. He rushed up the inside to gain command after completing the opening sixteenth of a mile of the six-furlong Smile.
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Dean Delivers set a solid pace, posting splits of 21.88 seconds and 44.30 for the opening half-mile, settled into the stretch with a comfortable advantage, and was never seriously threatened while kept under urging to the end.
Big and Classy, a former claimer who entered the Smile sporting a six-race win streak, turned in a big effort in his stakes debut, racing wide and rallying mildly to easily prove second best.
Todo Fino, who had a five-race winning streak that began more than 16 months earlier in his native Chile, attended the pace for five furlongs before tiring to finish third while making his first start since mid-October.
Defending Smile champion Willy Boi was never a serious factor, checking home sixth, beaten nearly eight lengths, while finishing off the board for the fourth consecutive time.
Dean Delivers, a Stonehedge Farm homebred by Cajun Breeze, paid $4.40 after completing the distance in 1:09.28 over a track downgraded from fast to good earlier in the day.
“There really was no plan other than to let Jaramillo do what he needed to do when the gates opened,” Yates said when asked if he was surprised to see Dean Delivers on the lead. “We’ve been trying to get him to settle, settle, settle when going seven furlongs and a mile. But I was anxious to back him up a little bit and it was time for him to just go today.”
Dean Delivers earned a $25,000 bonus offered by the FTBOA to a Florida-bred winner of the Smile. He also earned a credit of $30,000 toward entry fees for the Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Santa Anita on Nov. 4.
As for sending Dean Delivers to the Breeders’ Cup, Yates said, “it’s not out of the question. It will be a group decision that will include Stonehedge LLC’s Marilyn Campbell and farm manager Larry King.”
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