Brad Cox-trained 3-year-old fillies in recent years have made hay in the Fair Grounds dirt-route stakes program. Cox has trained the Fair Grounds Oaks winner four out of the last six years and won the Rachel Alexandra three times during the last four seasons. But while Cox has runners in seven Fair Grounds races Saturday, he starts nothing in the Silverbulletday Stakes for 3-year-old fillies, a race he’s won twice the last three years.
That’s despite the fact Cox sent out Hit Parade last month to win the Untapable Stakes, a late-season 2-year-old filly contest that leads into the trio of 3-year-old races. Hit Parade ran her winning streak to three capturing the Untapable on Dec. 20 by a nose and has posted two Fair Grounds works in January, but Cox said he’s awaiting the $300,000 Martha Washington on Jan. 31 at Oaklawn Park for Hit Parade.
“Just wanted a little more time with her, and this gives her six weeks between races,” Cox said. “She’s a medium-sized filly. I’d like to have a little horse left for the rest of the year.”
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Cox said he could have a second runner, Life Is Joy, for the Martha Washington. Fourth in the Golden Rod at Churchill Downs in November, Life Is Joy has been working steadily at Payson Park in Florida, where Cox has most of his top horses stabled.
Among them is Hit Show, whose Jan. 10 breeze was his first since finishing a solid second Nov. 28 in the Grade 2 Clark. Hit Show, Cox said, likely ships to New Orleans next month to start in the Mineshaft Stakes, an intended prep for the $12 million Dubai World Cup, which Hit Show won by a half-length this past April.
Cox, during the Fair Grounds racing week spanning Jan. 8-11 won with all five of his starters, among them Bless the Broken, who returned from a seven-month absence while making her first start for Cox and first since she sold at a November auction for $950,000. Third in the Kentucky Oaks, Bless the Broken won a second-level, dirt-route allowance by two lengths, earning an 85 Beyer Speed Figure, a number that came back stronger in the Ragozin sheets.
“I’d say there could be some upside with her. She wasn’t cranked to the gills,” Cox said.
Bless the Broken shipped back to Payson and Cox has no set plans for her next start. That surely comes in stakes competition but won’t come at Fair Grounds, which lacks a real dirt-route stakes program for older fillies and mares.
◗ Thunder Buck, cross-entered in the Lecomte Stakes and a first-level allowance on Saturday’s card, runs in the Lecomte, said trainer Brad Cox, who also has White Tiger and Quality Mischief for the race. The two-start maiden Ocelli will be scratched from the Lecomte in favor of a Saturday maiden race, per trainer Whit Beckman.
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