Sheer Drama will train up to BC Distaff

Sheer Drama is settled back in at her Gulfstream Park base after winning last weekend’s Personal Ensign Stakes at Saratoga, and the plan is for her to train locally up to the Breeders’ Cup Distaff, trainer David Fawkes said Wednesday.

Sheer Drama shipped home Sunday and was scheduled to return to the track Thursday. She now has paired up Grade 1 wins, the Personal Ensign score last Saturday coming as an encore to her Delaware Handicap win July 18. Fawkes said Sheer Drama’s schedule up to the Breeders’ Cup will be the same as it was for the Personal Ensign.

“I don’t want to change anything,” said Fawkes, who trains Sheer Drama for breeder Harold Queen. “Normally, she breezes eight or nine days out of her race. She’s not the kind of horse that needs to be out there on the rail every week.”

Sheer Drama likely will have her first work back in about three weeks, said Fawkes. He said he plans to ship her to Keeneland about a week out from the $2 million BC Distaff, a 1 1/8-mile race for fillies and mares Oct. 30. Joe Bravo, the regular rider on Sheer Drama, will have the mount in the Breeders’ Cup.

Fawkes likes the added time Sheer Drama will have between the Personal Ensign and BC Distaff.

“We’re just going to sit and wait,” he said. “She does better with more time out. In a perfect world, I wish I would have had a couple of more weeks between her last race and the Personal Ensign, but I didn’t, and it worked out anyway.”

Fawkes plans to be active on Saturday’s stakes card at Gulfstream and has at least three starters on deck, including Katie’s Kiss, who won the $75,000 Summer Winds on Aug. 16 at Gulfstream. Fawkes also has debut winner Tribal Drama set for the Florida Sire Stakes. He won a maiden special weight by 5 3/4 lengths on Aug. 2 at Gulfstream.

“He won his debut impressively,” said Fawkes.

Tribal Drama is by Big Drama, the 2010 BC Sprint winner whom Fawkes trained for Queen. Sheer Drama is a half-sister to Big Drama.

** A competitive group of turf runners meets Friday in the featured eighth race, an optional $25,000 claiming race over 1 1/16 miles on the grass. The chief players appear to be Concert Stage, Louies Flower, Padilla, and Starship Zorro.