Dream Dancing noses Beau Recall in Del Mar Oaks

DEL MAR, Calif. - Dream Dancing won the Grade 1 Del Mar Oaks by a nose in a head-bobbing finish with Beau Recall on Saturday.

Back in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., trainer Mark Casse watched Dream Dancing win the most prestigious race of his career and gladly postponed his bedtime.

“I won’t sleep now,” Casse said by phone shortly before 10 p.m. Eastern.

Dream Dancing ($15.20) rallied wide under jockey Julien Leparoux to win the Del Mar Oaks over an unlucky Beau Recall, who dueled with the winner in the final strides while the fillies were trading leads.

“I wasn’t sure she’d get there until the last jump,” Casse said. “I could see Julien was sitting and waiting because she only has so much run.”

A measure of luck helped Dream Dancing, considering the close finish. This was a race that could have gone either way in the final strides.

“I tried to wait as long as I could and she was still strong at the finish,” Leparoux said.

Beau Recall finished a neck ahead of Madam Dancealot, who closed from last on the backstretch. Beau Recall and Madam Dancealot are owned by the Slam Dunk Racing partnership.

Con Te Partiro, the winner of the Sandringham Handicap at Royal Ascot in June, rallied from 12th in the final quarter-mile to finish fourth, followed by Meadowsweet, Vexatious, Storm the Hill, Tapped, Kathy’s Song, Pacific Wind, Kenda, and Blame It On Alphie.

Pacific Wind finished ninth, but was disqualified and placed 10th for causing interference to Kathy’s Song in the stretch.

Dream Dancing, a filly by Tapit, races for owner and breeder John Oxley. Dream Dancing has won 4 of 12 starts and earned $415,210. The Del Mar Oaks was her second start in a Grade 1. She finished fifth in the Grade 1 Alcibiades Stakes on dirt at Keeneland last October.

This year, Dream Dancing has been kept to turf. She won the Grade 3 Herecomesthebride Stakes at Gulfstream Park in March in her 2017 stakes debut, and lost her next four starts, all in Grade 3 races.

Dream Dancing was seventh in the Grade 3 Lake George Stakes at Saratoga on July 21 after a wide trip that Casse described as “not pretty.”

Dream Dancing will be considered for the Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup at Keeneland on Oct. 14, Casse said.