Delaware Park: Absolute Crackers hot off layoffs

Timing seems to matter a lot more than location to the turf filly Absolute Crackers. Returning from a layoff, first in Ireland and then in Kentucky and Florida, Absolute Crackers fired her best shot all three times and won by daylight margins.

The Graham Motion-trained Absolute Crackers will try to repeat that successful pattern when she makes her first start since early March in a $40,000 turf route Monday at Delaware Park.

The 4-year-old Absolute Crackers is among 11 fillies and mares entered in a mile-and-70-yard event open to nonwinners of four lifetime and $50,000 claimers. Two of the horses, Petit Trianon and Carrietta, are entered for the main track only.

The Irish-bred Absolute Crackers came off a six-month layoff to win her maiden by 2 1/4 lengths at Cork Racecourse in Ireland in April 2012. She won her first start in the United States, a first-level allowance at Keeneland, by 2 1/4 lengths following a break of 4 1/2 months and cleared her second allowance condition by a length in January at Gulfstream Park in her first start in 57 days.

Absolute Crackers is a full sister to Pachattack, a two-time Grade 3 winner and third-place finisher in the 2011 Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic for Motion.

Absolute Crackers will be making her first start since March 9. Statistically, Motion shows a 12-for-38 record (32 percent) with a high $3.87 return on investment with turf runners running in an allowance route following a break of 61 to 180 days.

Charged Cotton, winner of a restricted stakes on turf at Laurel last fall, and Daylight Ride, who is 2 for 3 on Delaware’s turf course, look like Absolute Crackers’s strongest challengers.

The Maryland-based Charged Cotton makes the third start of her form cycle following a close third in the one-mile Dahlia at Pimlico and a non-effort in the Grade 3 Gallorette Handicap, a race in which she trailed most of the way after stumbling at the start.

Daylight Ride, from the potent connections of trainer Jonathan Sheppard and George Strawbridge’s Augustin Stable, won a second-level allowance at Delaware two starts ago and was a close third racing over yielding ground at Penn National two weeks ago.

War Prospector takes a sharp rise in class after a 4 1/2-length romp while running for the optional $25,000 claiming price at Pimlico in early May. She is eligible to be claimed for $50,000 when she breaks from the far outside Monday.