Jockey Sara Del Fabbro has won dozens of races in England and Italy. But win number one in North American proved elusive.

Until today.

Del Fabbro, winless in 17 starts since arriving at the Fair Grounds in late December and 0-for-16 at Laurel this meet, earned her first Stateside win in Sunday’s Laurel Park opener, piloting Ifeelbadforyouson to an 8 ¼-length triumph in a $12,500 maiden claimer.

“Very happy to have my first win in America,” she exulted after the race.

Ifeelbadforyouson, owned by Make Family First Stable LLC, had been winless in six tries prior to today, though he had finished second twice against similar. But today, Del Fabbro put him on the lead from the jump, and he was never headed.

“When the one-horse [Lucky Prince] scratched – he had a little bit of gas – I said, ‘Just go. Try to outrun them and make the lead,’” said winning trainer Ben Feliciano, Jr. “With the weight off – I did it yesterday.”

That had been with Frosty the Giant, ridden by seven-pound bug Matilda Burnham – something that Del Fabbro had noticed.

“He’s a very good trainer. Yesterday, he won an amazing race with Matilda,” Del Fabbro said after her own win. “I was very happy for her. She’s a lovely girl. We back up each other.”

Del Fabbro, 25, caught the horse bug early but it wasn’t until she was 19, she said, that she began riding seriously. Though she grew up in Bergamo – about 25 miles northeast of Milan, Italy – she attended the British Racing School, since Italy has no apprentice development program.

She rode her first winner in 2018 – in her second start — for trainer Michael Bell and eventually returned to Italy to ride, earning plaudits with a 30-win season in 2022.

Moving to the United States, she rode one race late last December at the Fair Grounds and has had a steady stream of mounts since arriving at Laurel Park. Feliciano said that Del Fabbro “gets on a horse here and there for me” in the mornings and that she had worked Ifeelbadforyouson.

“I had heard that she has won a bunch of races over in Italy,” Feliciano said. “[Agent Mark] Mace brought her over, and I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll put you on this one right here.’ She just looked good on the horse.”

It had been a bit of a slow start for Del Fabbro in the U. S. Her first 17 starts had yielded only a pair of third-place finishes and a bit over $13,000 in purse earnings.

But today on a sloppy, sealed track, Ifeelbadforyouson, a Maryland-bred gelding by Super Ninety Nine, perhaps helped jumpstart her career. He zipped to the front and led by two lengths after a half-mile in 47.88 seconds, with 4-5 favorite Bee a Sky Beam his nearest pursuer.

Ifeelbadforyouson spurted away from his rival in upper stretch, and the margin widened through the lane. Running time for the one-turn mile was 1:40.88. Bee a Sky Beam, more than eight behind the winner, was nearly eight clear of show horse Blind Eye.

It’s a long stretch run in Laurel’s one-turn mile. But that’s not how it felt to Del Fabbro.

“It was so easy,” she said. “He never got tired. He kept picking it up. So it looked short to me, really.”

It was just a maiden claimer over a sodden track in central Maryland. But if you squinted in just the right way, you could see where Del Fabbro was looking.

“Just the racing [in America], it’s something you look up to,” she said. “And my big dream, you know, is to get the flowers. So I’m following the dream.”