Honor D Lady most proven of Joseph's Royal Delta foursome

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. will combine quantity and quality when sending out four of the 11 potential starters, including Grade 3 winner Honor D Lady, in Saturday’s $150,000 Royal Delta Stakes at Gulfstream Park. The Grade 3 fixture will be decided at 1 1/16 miles and goes as the 11th event on a 12-race card that begins at 12:10 a.m.

Joseph’s entrants all run for different interests and will be uncoupled in the wagering. Honor D Lady, to this point, is the most accomplished of the quartet, having won the Grade 3 Remington Park Oaks in the penultimate start of her 3-year-old campaign. She concluded the season with a third-place finish two months later in the Grade 3 Comely Stakes at Aqueduct.

Both of those races came after Joseph switched the daughter of Honor Code back to dirt following six consecutive outings over turf and Tapeta that featured a victory in the Honey Ryder Stakes on the grass here last spring. Honor D Lady has worked forwardly for her 4-year-old bow, which will be her first start against older horses.

“Obviously she ran very well when getting back on the dirt and we decided after the Comely to just freshen her and point for this race,” said Joseph. “After her poor effort over a soft course in Saratoga we decided that was a good time to gamble and put her back on dirt and it worked out. It’s really been the key factor with her.”

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Rosie’s Halo is winless in four starts since cruising to a one-sided optional-claiming and allowance win going a mile here last April. Joseph experimented putting blinkers on Rosie’s Halo for a couple of starts late last season before taking them off in her 2023 finale when she finished a tiring fourth behind Maryquitecontrary and stablemate Imonra in the one-mile Rampart.

“First time she’s going two turns, I think she’ll handle it, but class-wise it’s probably going to be tough for her to hit the board in this spot,” Joseph admitted.

Imonra, runner-up in the Grade 3 Iowa Oaks last summer at Prairie Meadows, is coming off arguably her best effort to date in the Rampart when beaten just a length by defending champion Maryquitecontrary in her first meeting with older horses.

“She’s done really well going a mile but I think she’s just as good going two turns. Her race at Prairie is an example of that,” Joseph said. “I think she’s going to run well.”

Libban is the least experienced of the Joseph foursome with only five previous starts. She tried two turns for the first time last month at Tampa Bay Downs in the Wayward Lass Stakes, setting or contesting the pace to midstretch before gradually weakening to finish fourth behind Opus Forty Two, who also returns in the Royal Delta.

“We think a lot of this filly,” said Joseph. “She worked with Honor D Lady and was just as good if not better in the work.

“She acted up in the gate before her race in Tampa, which was uncharacteristic and I thought she ran okay considering all that. She didn’t give up. It might not say it in her paper, but I think she has this kind of race in her.”

Trainer Todd Pletcher has won the Royal Delta four times, including last year with Classy Edition. He will try to successfully defend that title with Tizzy in the Sky, who closed out 2023 at Aqueduct by finishing second in both the Turnback the Alarm, when beaten a neck by Interstatedaydream, and the Grade 3 Go for Wand.

“She lost a tough one in the Turnback the Alarm, but she had such a strong race winning the two-other-than in her previous start it might not have hurt if she had a little more time between those races,” said Pletcher. “She’s a filly who has trained really well and what we’ve seen in her two-turn races is what we’ve seen from her in those works. I think she’s definitely a two-turn horse and I think we’ve seen signs that she’s even improved since we’ve been down here.”

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Maryquitecontrary is another in this field who must answer the two-turn question for the first time. The local favorite, who has won seven times and not finished worse than third in 10 races over her home track, has made two starts since being transferred to trainer Eddie Plesa Jr. during the fall. She captured the Rampart for a second straight time before finishing third after hanging some during the latter stages of the Grade 2 Inside Information going seven furlongs on Jan. 27.

Grade 3 winner Nostalgic will hope to improve on her disappointing sixth-place effort in the Rampart while stretching back to perhaps her preferred distance. She rounds out a field that also includes Soul of an Angel, Magical Lute, and Yuki.

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