Youalmosthadme gets test at Beard Course distance in Beaumont

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Inside and outside, trainer Brad Cox has the Beaumont Stakes covered.

The Grade 2, $400,000 Beaumont, a dirt race restricted to 3-year-old fillies and contested over Keeneland’s Beard Course at seven furlongs and 184 feet, drew just six entrants. The Cox-trained Denim and Pearls breaks from post 1 under Flavien Prat, while Cox’s second entrant, Youalmosthadme, drew post 6, Tyler Gaffalione named to ride.

Youalmosthadme was made the even-money favorite, Denim and Pearls the 7-2 third choice behind 3-1 Tipsy Tammy. Those odds don’t seem right. Tipsy Tammy is trained by Phil Bauer for Rigney Racing, and horses from that barn inevitably, at least on the Kentucky circuit, take heavy betting. Still, the Cox-Prat team is a powerful market force itself, and Denim and Pearls brings stronger and more advanced form than Tipsy Tammy into the Beaumont. The odds gap between Denim and Pearls and Youalmosthadme also could be narrower.

Cox himself said he’s not entirely sure how to parse the chances of his pair.

Youalmosthadme has so far been faster, at least on the Beyer Speed Figure scale, and her peak figure, an 89, came last fall over the Keeneland surface when she roared home a seven-length winner of the $200,000 Myrtlewood Stakes. That made Youalmosthadme 2 for 2 at Keeneland, where she won her career debut as an April 2-year-old, and won it well enough that Resolute Racing privately purchased the Oxbow filly and moved her into the Cox stable.

Horses winning baby races in April are the earliest developers. Speed often is their greatest strength, and distance limitations frequently surface.

To Youalmosthadme’s credit, she went from a perfect pressing trip in the Myrtelwood on to a more demanding rail-rallying journey last November in the Fern Creek at Churchill and won that by a half-length. The Fern Creek is a 6 1/2-furlong contest, the Myrtelwood run over six furlongs. Youalmosthadme’s two worst performances came in races at seven furlongs and one mile. Granted, she had an excuse in one of those starts, but the Beard Course trip could tax her.

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“She likes Keeneland and she drew well to give her an opportunity to get the distance,” Cox said. “I’ve always thought she’d stretch a little more.”

Youalmosthadme only made it to the work tab on March 3, following a winter break.

“If you’d asked me a month ago if she’d been ready for this, I’d have said no, but her last three works have been very, very good,” Cox said.

Denim and Pearls goes the other direction, cutting back in trip after a pair of two-turn starts at Oaklawn Park. Second in the Year’s End Stakes over one mile, Denim and Pearls was second again going 1 1/16 miles on Feb. 3 in the Martha Washington, plugging along gamely going farther than she might want to run. Denim and Pearls, by Into Mischief, won her debut last fall at Keeneland going 6 1/2 furlongs and came back to capture a one-turn mile allowance race at Churchill.

“I think Denim and Pearls is going to like the turnback,” said Cox, who plans to keep strategy from post 1 simple. “Come out of there running and see what happens.”

Tipsy Tammy debuted at Fair Grounds and finished second as the heavy favorite after running into the Cox-trained Impel, who was to run in the Grade 1 Ashland on Friday. A second-start maiden winner, Tipsy Tammy was taken out of her game in a March 3 Fair Grounds allowance race when she hit the gate at the start.

Harbor Springs was to be scratched from a Friday allowance race at Keeneland to take her shot at the Beaumont. She’s an improving filly making her third start and stretching out from six furlongs to a distance that could suit her. Two Cox horses, though, stand in her way.

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