Shippers top State Fair Stakes at Prairie

Nursery Rhyme, shown winning at Arlington Park, has been sent to Prairie Meadows for Friday night's $50,000 Iowa State Fair Stakes. P

Two interesting shippers, Nursery Rhyme and Daguerreotype, will be in for Friday night's $50,000 Iowa State Fair Stakes. The race, contested at six furlongs, is Prairie Meadows's annual salute to the much anticipated state fair, which opened Thursday in Des Moines.

Nursery Rhyme, Janis R. Whitham's talented homebred trained by Ian Wilkes, returns from Churchill Downs after running an encouraging fourth here, beaten just a length, in the $100,000 Saylorville Stakes on June 26. Keeneland-based Daguerreotype, who hails from Joan Scott's stable, makes her stakes debut after dispatching Presque Isle allowance foes by two lengths.

Daguerreotype will be challenged for the early lead by the locally based Don'ttalktome, who returns to sprinting and faces elders for the first time. Trained by Judi Hicklin, Don'ttalktome won both the Goldfinch Stakes and Panthers Stakes during the recently completed Thoroughbred season, which preceded the current mixed meet.

The Thoroughbred meet's leading trainer, Lynn Chleborad, leads over a pair. Phoenician Moon, winner of Remington Park's El Gaylord Memorial Stakes last October, makes her long-awaited 2009 debut.

"She didn't handle the Delta sand last December, and it was nothing serious but she needed a break," Hicklin said.

Friend O the Devil, who has earned more than $84,000 this year since being claimed for $7,500 last November, returned to form Aug. 4 when handling allowance rivals here by 1 3/4 lengths.