Jaywalk the clear star in Davona Dale

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – While the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth will be the center of attention Saturday at Gulfstream Park, the most accomplished 3-year-old running on the card starts about 30 minutes earlier, when Breeders’ Cup and Eclipse Award winner Jaywalk goes postward as the overwhelming favorite in the $200,000 Davona Dale. The one-mile, Grade 2 fixture drew a field of just seven 3-year-old fillies and goes as the 12th event on the marathon 14-race card.

Jaywalk will be making her first start since leading throughout to register a 5 1/2-length victory in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies on Nov. 2 at Churchill Downs. The win was the fourth in succession for the daughter of Cross Traffic, who is owned by Cash is King LLC and D J Stable and trained by John Servis.

Jaywalk spent about a month at Hidden Brook Farm in Ocala, Fla., before rejoining Servis’s stable at Palm Meadows after the Breeders’ Cup. She has had a series of six works prepping for her return, with the most serious of those moves six furlongs in 1:12.40 on Feb. 13. Joel Rosario, who guided Jaywalk to one-sided victories in both the Juvenile Fillies and Grade 1 Frizette, will be in his regular seat on Saturday.

“I could tell after her first breeze back she hadn’t missed much when she was away,” said Servis, who won the 2016 Davona Dale with Cathryn Sophia. “She really came back to me from the farm in great shape. She didn’t miss much at all when she was away, and I’m really excited about getting her going.”

Servis said that his first major goal for Jaywalk this season would be the Kentucky Oaks on May 3, a race he won with Cathryn Sophia three years ago. He said he has no set plan as to what race might bridge the gap between the Davona Dale and the Oaks, with the two most likely options being either the Gulfstream Park Oaks on March 30 or the Ashland at Keeneland one week later.

Jaywalk drew the rail on Saturday and appears the likely pacesetter coming out of the one-mile chute.

“She doesn’t have to be in front. She can press,” said Servis. “But she’s sharp, so I expect her to be close. And, I expect her to run well.”

While Jaywalk appears to be a standout on paper in the Davona Dale, there is little to choose between most of the others.

Cookie Dough and Bold Script are the only other stakes winners in the lineup, although both won those races against restricted company at 2.

Cookie Dough captured the final two legs of the Florida Sire Stakes series, the seven-furlong Susan’s Girl and 1 1/16-mile My Dear Girl, by a combined 14 lengths here in September but has not started since.

Bold Script has been idle since drawing off to a 7 1/2-length triumph going 1 1/16 miles against Canadian-breds in the Princess Elizabeth Stakes on Nov. 4. She was third against open company on turf in the Grade 1 Natalma late last summer at Woodbine. The Davona Dale will mark her first start on dirt.

The remainder of the field is Another Time, a distant third last out in the seven-furlong Gasparilla at Tampa Bay Downs; Champagne Anyone and Jeltrin, third and fourth behind Feedback in the Grade 3 Forward Gal here one month ago; and the Grade 2-placed High Regard, who also makes her 3-year-old bow on Saturday.