Fawkes targets My Dear Girl with Select Friday

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Like many of his local colleagues who are year-round South Florida racing veterans, trainer David Fawkes targets the Florida Sire Stakes as soon as the first batch of 2-year-olds arrives at the barn each spring.

Fawkes has been very successful with the series over the years, including a sweep of the open division with Big Drama in 2008. One of the stallion races that has eluded him, however, is the 1 1/16-mile My Dear Girl, the finale of the filly division of the series.

Fawkes will try to fill that gap on his résumé Saturday when he sends out Select Friday against what is expected to be a full and wide-open field in the My Dear Girl. Select Friday has started only twice coming into the race and not since finishing second, beaten 1 1/4 lengths, by the odds-on favorite Capture the Dream in the opening leg of the series, the six-furlong Desert Vixen, on Aug. 4. Select Friday, a daughter of Kantharos, won her only other outing by 3 1/4 lengths at five furlongs five weeks before that.

Fawkes said that Select Friday had to miss the seven-furlong Susan’s Girl, middle leg of the Sire Stakes, because she came down with a temperature.

“That would have set her up perfectly for this one,” he said. “She worked the other day with Elgin Escape and worked well. Nik (Juarez) said she was a little cautious working down on the inside, but on race day she’s fine. Naturally I’m concerned about going two turns without having gotten the seven-furlong race for her, and I’d have loved to have gotten one more work into her as well. But the division is so wide open, there are really no standouts, so we really have to take the chance.”

Elgin Escape is one of two colts Fawkes will send out on Saturday in the colts and geldings division, the 1 1/16-mile In Reality, along with First and Three. Elgin Escape won his maiden at second asking before finishing a tiring seventh behind Garter and Tie in the seven-furlong Affirmed.

“I’m going to take the blinkers off Elgin Escape,” Fawkes said. “I thought he got a little rank last time pressing the pace, and then flattened out. Hopefully he will relax better without the blinkers.”

First and Three won his only start by nine lengths under a $35,000 claiming tag earlier this month.

“He really hadn’t shown much in his works, but the lightbulb really went off after he worked from the gate prior to his first start,” Fawkes said. “I wasn’t surprised he won, what surprised me was the margin he won by, and I think the added distance should be a plus for him on Saturday.”

Entries for both stallion series finales, along with the entire Saturday program, including six other stakes, will be drawn Wednesday.

Cookie Dough, runaway winner of the Susan’s Girl, tops the prospective lineup for the My Dear Girl with Garter and Tie and Well Defined, first and second in the Affirmed, the leading contenders to take down top honors in the In Reality.

Trainer race down to wire

While Emisael Jaramillo enters the final week of the summer session with a seemingly comfortable seven-win advantage over Tyler Gaffalione in the jockey race, the battle for leading trainer figures to go to the wire with Armando De La Cerda and Victor Barboza deadlocked with 22 victories apiece when racing resumes Thursday. Fawkes and Gilbert Zerpa are tied for third with 18. Zerpa sports an almost ridiculous 47 percent win rate for the meet.

Mantaray Island in career debut

Although there are two allowance races on Thursday’s program, the most intriguing event on the 10-race card is a six-furlong maiden special weight dash for 3-year-olds and upward that lured the $1.45 million 2-year-old purchase Mantaray Island, who is making his career debut for Coolmore and trainer Todd Pletcher. Mantaray Island is a son of Bernardini and a half-brother to the Grade 3 winner and Grade 1-placed Ocho Ocho Ocho.

Among the competition for Mantaray will be the extremely well-bred first-time starter Somethinstappin, who finally makes it to the races as a 4-year-old, and Bodebabe, who has been working up a storm locally in preparation for his debut.

Somethinstappin, who brought $400,000 as a yearling in August 2015, is by Tapit out of the $1.1 million earner Somethinaboutlaura, which makes him a half-brother to Something Awesome, winner of the Grade 2 Charles Town Classic earlier this year.