Servis audibles to Dashing Beauty with Irish Maxima
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Several contenders are questionable to run in the $150,000 Dashing Beauty Stakes on Thursday at Delaware Park, but heavy favorite Irish Maxima is ready to roll off a short layoff for trainer John Servis. The graded stakes winner was entered in the $100,000 Maggie Walker at Colonial Downs last weekend but scratched.
“I was all set to go to Colonial and I actually just got off a plane and I got a text on my phone,” Servis said. “I was still on the plane when I saw they had canceled the [Friday] card. It was pretty smoky from the fires and it was supposed to be really hot, and I decided to call Delaware real quick, just to cover myself.”
After canceling racing Friday because of poor air quality, Colonial resumed Saturday and ran the Maggie Walker, which was won by Miss Authentic. But after looking at his backup plan at Delaware, Servis realized he preferred the Dashing Beauty anyway and decided to ship his mare to Delaware.
After a slow start to her 2026 campaign, Irish Maxima rattled off three straight victories at Aqueduct and Parx Racing, culminating in a front-running score in the Grade 2 Ruffian. Last year, she won the Grade 3 Distaff in similar fashion at Aqueduct.
“She probably could have run back in three, four weeks, but we were kind of wanting to stretch it,” Servis said. “We didn’t really have a lot of spots we were looking at. We were pointing toward the [Maggie Walker], with the Delaware race as a little bit of a fallback. We decided not to do the Colonial race, but she trained great going into it.”
With five career stakes victories and a potent front-running style, Irish Maxima has been listed as the overwhelming 3-2 morning-line favorite Thursday. Several contenders could challenge her early in the six-furlong sprint, but she will be helped by scratches in the field of eight fillies and mares, as she was not the only one who entered with other options.
The front-running Disco Ebo and Icona Mama both ran in stakes last weekend and will likely scratch, while another potential pacesetter, the Saffie Joseph Jr.-trained filly Anakarina, is cross-entered in the $100,000 Love Sign on Saturday at Colonial, along with the Jordan Blair-trained mare Outrageously.
My Magic Wand, a 5-year-old mare trained by Gregg Sacco, skipped the Regret on a sloppy track at Monmouth last Saturday, making her a more certain pace presence in the Dashing Beauty. She has been training at Delaware since May.
“She has rated, and Irish Maxima is a very, very talented horse,” Sacco said. “I’ll leave it up to [jockey Edwin Gonzalez]. But we can’t be any happier with the way she’s coming into the race.”
Before scratching from the Regret, Sacco said he preferred the spot at Delaware, where she is sure to be prominent early from the far outside post. After finishing fifth in the Grade 3 Vagrancy at Aqueduct in May, she shipped back up to New York to win a second-level allowance in gate-to-wire fashion on June 11.
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