Delaware Oaks rematches top pair from Go for Wand

Tell a Great Story and Ile St. Molly, separated by a nose when they met last month, are rematched going a slightly longer distance in Saturday’s Grade 2, $300,000 Delaware Oaks at Delaware Park.

The Oaks, which drew a field of nine 3-year-old fillies when entries closed Wednesday afternoon, headlines a card that also features the Grade 3, $200,000 Robert Dick Memorial Stakes for fillies and mares going 1 3/8 miles on turf.

Ile St. Molly (post 8) and Tell a Great Story (post 9) drew unfavorably on the far outside.

The Maryland-based Tell a Great Story was making her stakes debut when she got up in the final jump to nail Ile St. Molly in the mile and 70-yard Go for Wand at Delaware on June 15.

Ile St. Molly, the only two-time stakes winner in the Oaks field, won the six-furlong Rainbow Miss for Arkansas-breds at Oaklawn Park and the faster division of the one-mile Our Mims on opening day at Delaware. The 1 1/16-mile Oaks will be the longest race of Ile St. Molly’s career.

Maracuya, who trains at Saratoga with Ralph Nicks, won her first two career starts at Gulfstream Park in March. In her only subsequent start, Maracuya set a pressured pace and faded badly to fourth in the Grade 2 Black-Eyed Susan at Pimlico on May 17.

Dancing Afleet is 2 for 2 at Delaware after winning her two most recent races by a combined 11 1/2 lengths. She will be making her stakes debut for trainer Tim Ritchey, who won the 2007 Delaware Oaks with Mooncatcher.

Trainer Steve Asmussen will ship in Alli Leigh from New York. She was third in the Go for Wand, but 11 1/2 lengths behind the top pair. Alli Leigh does own a pair of wins going 1 1/16 miles at Oaklawn Park.

Makayla’s Angel was scratched out of Wednesday’s $50,000 Christiana on turf in favor of the Oaks. She steps up to stakes company for the first time after winning her first two starts of the Delaware meet by daylight margins. Her trainer, Graham Motion, won the 2000 Delaware Oaks with Sincerely.

Motion also will saddle three of the 10 horses entered in the Dick, a stakes he has won six times. Motion’s top two hopefuls are the 5-year-old Qushchi, who most recently missed by a head going 1 3/8 miles in an overnight stakes at Churchill Downs, and the 4-year-old Valiant Girl, who will be making her first start since April 30.