Dr B targeting Barbara Fritchie at Laurel

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Following her career-best performance winning Saturday’s Grade 3 Go for Wand Stakes in the slop at Aqueduct, Dr B will likely target the Grade 3, $250,000 Barbara Fritchie Stakes on Feb. 18 at Laurel Park, trainer Butch Reid said Sunday.

After a couple of runner-up performances in stakes, Dr B had her black-type breakthrough winning the Go for Wand by 4 1/4 lengths in front-running fashion under Irad Ortiz Jr. Her final time of 1:35.13 for the mile was .35 of a second faster than Mind Control’s time for winning the Grade 1 Cigar Mile later on the card. It translated into a career-best 103 Beyer Speed Figure for the daughter of Liam’s Map owned by Chuck Zacney’s Cash is King and Glenn Bennett’s LC Racing.

“She looked good this morning but she was tired,” Reid said Sunday. “We want to make sure off that performance yesterday she gets plenty of time no matter what we decide to do with her for her next race.

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“Obviously, with that race she moved to a new level, so it changed our thinking so we got to research that now and pick out our best spot and do what’s best for her,” Reid said.

The victory for Ortiz was his 77th stakes win of the year, establishing a new record for stakes wins by a jockey in a single year. Garret Gomez won 76 stakes in 2007.

It was the 49th graded stakes win for Ortiz. With limited graded races remaining in December, Ortiz is unlikely to catch Jerry Bailey, who holds the record of 55 graded stakes wins in 2003.

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