Myfavoritedaughter out to prove romp was no fluke in Del Mar Debutante
The number is so large it looks odd in a race record.
Myfavoritedaughter won a seven-furlong maiden special weight race on a sloppy track by an astonishing 25 lengths on June 30 at Gulfstream Park.
The race was meant to be run on turf. Racing on grass can wait for Myfavoritedaughter. The result has turned into a trip to California for Myfavoritedaughter and a start in Sunday’s Grade 1 Del Mar Debutante, California’s top race for 2-year-old fillies in the summer.
Myfavoritedaughter cost only $20,000 at a 2-year-olds in training sale in Florida earlier this year and can win $180,000 for the four-person Average Joe Racing Stable partnership and trainer Jeff Engler with an upset win in the $300,000 Debutante.
Engler was left encouraged when Myfavoritedaughter worked a half-mile in 47.60 seconds on Aug. 24 at Del Mar under jockey Jose Valdivia Jr., who will have the mount in the Debutante.
“She’s trained phenomenal,” he said Wednesday. “She’s taken to this track and she’s doing great. She’s just floating across the ground.”
Myfavoritedaughter was third and fourth in five-furlong maiden races on dirt and turf in May and June at Gulfstream Park before the easy win on a Wednesday in June under jockey Cristian Torres.
“She broke on top and she lengthened from there,” Engler recalled. “Cristian Torres never moved on her, and when he came back he said, ‘She’s special.’ ”
Florida shippers have done well in the Debutante in the not-too-distant past. In 2009, Blind Luck, winner of a $40,000 claimer for maidens at Calder in June of that year, finished second by a length in the Debutante for trainer Jerry Hollendorfer.
Blind Luck went on to win 10 stakes and earn more than $3.2 million. She was the champion 3-year-old filly of 2010, the year she won the Kentucky Oaks.
To win the Debutante, Engler must beat Elm Drive and Eda, the first two finishers of the Grade 2 Sorrento Stakes at six furlongs on Aug. 6; the two-time stakes winner At the Spa; and the promising maiden race winner Dance to the Music in what is expected to be a field of nine fillies.
“I think we have a chance to win,” Engler said. “I’ve watched a lot of the 2-year-old races out here. I will be happy with a place finish, but I’m going in with thoughts of winning.”