Delaware Handicap feature a strong field of seven horses

TWO GRADE I stakes are run in the Delaware Valley each year, at least until the graded stakes committee wises up and makes the Pennsylvania Derby a Grade I. The Cotillion for 3-year-old fillies will be run Sept. 19 at Parx Racing. The venerable Delaware Handicap will be run for the 78th time tomorrow at Delaware Park.

The $750,000 race for fillies and mares is at the classic American distance, a mile and a quarter. Through the years, the race has been won by many special horses, including Susan's Girl and Our Mims back in the day and, more recently, Royal Delta and Blind Luck.

Terrific horses such as Havre de Grace and Princess of Sylmar finished second.

A very competitive field of seven will line up in the starting gate at what remains one of America's most beautiful racetracks. Yes, there is a rather large casino at one end of the grandstand, but the essence of DelPark remains - the classic, tree-lined paddock, the outdoor grandstand where every seat is a good one, the grove where you can disappear, alone with your thoughts, certain you have the winner of the next race or at least the one after that.

This DelCap is the kind of handicapping puzzle that will not be easily solved, but could be quite rewarding to those who put the pieces together correctly.

Three of the horses ran in the Fleur De Lis Handicap at Churchill Downs the Saturday night American Pharoah was paraded, a week after he won the Triple Crown at Belmont Park.

Frivolous won the race at 32-1. Sheer Drama, favored at 8-5, was second. America, owned by celebrity chef Bobby Flay, was fifth.

Horses near the front had a big advantage on that surface, so Frivolous might have been helped along by the track. Still, she got a lifetime best speed figure and might very well be the controlling speed in the DelCap.

Sheer Drama and America probably were both inhibited by that surface and could certainly improve enough to win.

Fortune Pearl won the Delaware Oaks last year, but her last two races were something less than her best. Flashy American was a solid third in last year's DelCap, finishing just behind Princess of Sylmar. Rosalind is trained by the scorching Chad Brown. Her best is good enough.

Joint Return represents the Philly angle. She is owned by Main Line Racing Stable, trained at Parx by John Servis and will be ridden by Kendrick Carmouche, the only jockey to win four consecutive Parx riding titles.

Joint Return will be easy to find. She will be last for much of the race, but that will be by design. That is simply her running style. She came from way back behind a moderate pace to be second in the Obeah, the 220-yard shorter prep for the DelCap.

"I told Kendrick when he thought it was time to go to take a deep breath, then count to 10 and then go," Servis said. "He said, 'Can I just count to five?' I told him 10."

Joint Return should be closer this time because the pace going this long likely will be a little slower.

"We were actually using the Obeah as an experiment to see if we sat longer if she would finish better," Servis said. "In her last few, I felt like she made a big move and did not sustain the rally. She would just kind of hang out there at the end. So we asked Kendrick to sit just a little longer and she was certainly running at the end. She was full of run and I was very happy. She is doing great coming into the race, so we are pretty excited."

The DelCap, first run in 1937, is always an exciting race. The winning trainers and jockeys are a who's-who of the sport, from Henry Clark to Todd Pletcher, from Angel Cordero Jr. to Mike Smith. Times have changed. Delaware's signature horse race remains timeless.