Pixie Dust heads optional-claiming sprint on solid Sunday card

Coming into the weekend, Parx had not raced since canceling after the first race Jan. 19 as winter weather has made it difficult to maintain the racing surface.

“Two Sundays ago [Jan. 18], we had heavy rain, like three inches, then we had a flash freeze,” said Sam Elliott, the new director of racing at Parx. “That Monday, we got into a freeze-and-thaw pattern. The track would be good for training, but then the sun would come out, and it would just fall apart. It would get uneven.”

Elliott especially wants to get Sunday’s races in as he is proud of the program.

“I think it’s a pretty sporty card,” he said. “They told me I couldn’t make an open allowance race, and we did.”

The seventh through ninth races Sunday form a particularly nice sequence. The combined purse for the three races is $146,000.

The seventh is a second-level optional-claiming sprint for fillies and mares. The eighth is a second-level optional claimer for 4-year-olds and up at a mile. The ninth is a no-conditions allowance at seven furlongs for 4-year-olds and up that has entrants from Chad Brown, David Jacobson, Jason Servis, and the top two trainers at Parx in 2014, Ramon Preciado and Patricia Farro.

One of the more interesting horses on the card is Pixie Dust in race 7.

In her last start, a second-level Pennsylvania-bred allowance, she was fidgeting in the gate when it opened and missed the break. Pixie Dust dropped at least 15 lengths back early and doesn’t appear in the video of the race until the quarter pole. Pixie Dust finished strongly from the center of the course to be up in deep stretch for a 1 1/4-length win.

Trained by James Lawrence II, Pixie Dust won 4 of 11 races last year as a 3-year-old while at times hinting at greater potential. She faces tougher company Sunday than she did last time out.