Free Like a Girl should enjoy homecoming in Magnolia Stakes

Free Like a Girl has accomplished a great deal since the close of the Delta Downs meet last season. She returns to her home track of Delta on Friday night for the $100,000 Magnolia.

The seven-furlong race, which will be run around two turns, is for fillies and mares bred in Louisiana. The race has drawn a field of 10, among them multiple stakes winners Winning Romance and Snowball.

Free Like a Girl boasts a 3-for-3 record at Delta, with all of her wins coming in stakes. Following last year’s meet, she tested graded stakes rivals, running fourth to eventual Kentucky Oaks winner Secret Oath in the Honeybee at Oaklawn Park and second to eventual Grade 1 Cotillion winner Society in the Charles Town Oaks. Overall, Free Like a Girl is 8 for 17 with earnings of more than $600,000.

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“She has so much heart and grit,” said Chasey Deville-Pomier, who co-owns and trains Free Like a Girl. “She just gives you everything she’s got. She literally just runs her heart out.”

Free Like a Girl exits the Grade 3 Remington Park Oaks, a 1 1/16-mile race Sept. 25 in which she was part of the pace and finished second to local stakes winner Hits Pricey Legacy.

“She came back great,” Deville-Pomier said. “She was bouncing. She was very upset after the race.”

Free Like a Girl will break from post 7 under regular rider Pedro Cotto Jr.

Deville-Pomier is pleased to be running back at Delta.

“This is just home,” she said. “We get to run her out of her stall. That’s the advantage the Oklahoma-bred had on us the other day. She ran a heck of a race.”

Free Like a Girl has been doing the same in her travels, which included a win in her first start against older rivals. It came in the Louisiana Cup Filly and Mare Sprint in August at Louisiana Downs.

Winning Romance enters the Magnolia off back-to-back stakes wins. Her latest came in the Evangeline Downs Distaff on May 6. Deshawn Parker was aboard from trainer Bret Calhoun and has the mount again Friday from post 6.

Vicente Del-Cid, the apprentice who ranks as one of the winningest riders this year in North America, will be aboard Snowball from post 5. A stakes winner at one and two turns, Snowball captured a one-mile allowance last out at Evangeline.

Miss Jana won the Acadiana Stakes over open company in April at Evangeline. Dreaming of Neany won the Crescent City Oaks in March at Fair Grounds.

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