Norman conquest should continue

Trainer Cole Norman, who has won five of the last nine stakes carded at Louisiana Downs in Bossier City, La., will be odds-on to add to that total Sunday when he sends out the well-regarded Dancing Dreams in the $40,000 Delta Miss Stakes. The six-furlong race for 2-year-old fillies has drawn seven, and should produce starters for the $75,000 Princess Futurity on Sept. 30.

Dancing Dreams, who has won her last three races by a combined 18 1/4 lengths, became a stakes winner in her most recent start, when she rolled to a 3 1/2-length victory in the $40,000 Rebel on Aug. 19. "Everything she's done, she's done easy," said Norman, who trains the filly for John Redmond. "She's really like a 3-year-old the way she acts. She's so mature. I think with a clean trip, she will be tough."

The chief threat to Dancing Dreams could be her stablemate, Queen of the Isle. The filly, who races for K.K. and Vilasini Jayaraman, overcame trouble at the break and at the three-eighths pole in the Rebel to rally for second. Norman said Queen of the Isle should appreciate the added sixteenth of a mile she gets to work with in the Delta Miss.

"The further she goes, the better she's going to be," said Norman, who has given the mount to Carlos Gonzalez.

Anthony Lovato has the mount on Dancing Dreams, who is a daughter of one of the region's leading sires of juvenile stakes winners, Hadif.