Delaware Park: 3 questions for Delcap day * The Racing Biz

Delaware Park: 3 questions for Delcap day

Frank Vespe
July 8, 2023

Delaware Park will be the site of three stakes today, with the Grade 2 Delaware Handicap the feature. That’s going to take place as the ninth race on a 10-race program.

Supporting the Delcap, which has attracted a field of six, are the $150,000 Battery Park for older horses going 1 1/16 miles and the $100,000 Dashing Beauty for older fillies and mares going six furlongs. All three are on the main track, with the Dashing Beauty to be the fifth race and the Battery Park, the seventh.

It’s the biggest day of the racing year in Delaware, what with the historic Delaware Handicap on tap, and it raises some questions:

1. Does a trip over the track help? And if so, how much?

In the aftermath of Award Wanted’s victory in the Obeah Stakes early in the meet, her trainer, Jerry Robb, pointed to what he perceived as an advantage: his horse had been training over the track, while his main rival, runner-up Morning Matcha, had not.

Morning Matcha is entered in this afternoon’s Delaware Handicap and is the only runner in the six-horse field with a start over the strip this season, that nose defeat in the Obeah. Will it matter?

Her trainer, Butch Reid, thinks so. “I was really glad I was able to get that race over the racetrack, even though she didn’t quite win, because I think that’s a definite advantage,” he said on Off to the Races Radio-Maryland. “That Delaware’s a little funnier track than you find anywhere on the East Coast. I always felt getting a race over that track was an important thing.”

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2. Where’d everybody go?

When entries came out, there were eight runners in the $150,000 Battery Park Stakes, and it was shaping up to be a terrific race.

By the time horses were done scratching, only three were left. Sigh.

Still, it’s a pretty good three to have: Grade 1 winner Doppelganger, millionaire Forewarned, and Grade 3 winner Ridin With Biden.

3. Can Ms. Bucchero keep it going?

The Dashing Beauty has drawn seven fillies and mares after scratches, and one of the most intriguing may be the Florida-bred Ms. Bucchero.

She’s another who’ll test the “race over the track angle,” as she and I’m the Boss of Me are the only runners in the race with a start over the strip this season. Ms. Bucchero took to it quite nicely, thank you very much, winning a second-level allowance by 8 ¼ lengths June 1. That was her third consecutive win, and they have come by a combined 15 ½ lengths.

Ms. Bucchero is trained by Diane Morici, and the setup of this race may be key; Ms. Bucchero is an ultra-speedy, front-running sort but perhaps not the only one here. The Brett Brinkman-trained Alva Starr also has lots of early lick, so the opening quarter and half could be swift.