Delaware Handicap rematches Frivolous, Sheer Drama

The Grade 1, $750,000 Delaware Handicap drew a field of seven when entries were taken Tuesday. The Saturday race is for fillies and mares and will be run at 1 1/4 miles. Favoritism will likely go to Sheer Drama, Frivolous, or Rosalind.

Delaware Park has also carded the Grade 3, $200,000 Kent Stakes, a 1 1/8-mile turf race for 3-year-olds, and two $50,000 stakes, the Hockessin and the Carl Hanford. Frivolous upset Sheer Drama at 32-1 on June 13 in the Grade 2 Fleur de Lis Handicap at Churchill Downs. Sheer Drama, the 17-10 favorite in that race, carried 120 pounds, four more than Frivolous. On Saturday both will carry 118.

Sheer Drama, trained by David Fawkes, has finished second in four of her last five starts, all in stakes company. She won the Grade 2 Royal Delta by 6 1/2 lengths at Gulfstream Park in March. Frivolous raced on the pace throughout in the Fleur de Lis and held off Sheer Drama by 1 1/2 lengths. The Fleur de Lis was her second stakes win. She won the Grade 2 Falls City for trainer Victoria Oliver at Churchill last November.

Rosalind is the only Grade 1 winner in the field, having won the Ashland Stakes over Polytrack at Keeneland in April 2014. Trainer Chad Brown switched her from turf to dirt for the Grade 1 Ogden Phipps on Belmont Stakes Day and she finished fourth to Wedding Toast. Rosalind was entered in last weekend’s Grade 3 Robert G. Dick Memorial on turf at Delaware but was scratched in favor of this spot.

Sheer Drama will break from post 5 under Joe Bravo. Frivolous has post 1 with Jon Court named to ride. Rosalind has post 6 and Joel Rosario. Also entered are Joint Return, a late-charging fourth in the Obeah at Delaware on June 20; Fortune Pearl, the fourth-place finisher in the Obeah; America, who was fifth in the Fleur de Lis; and Flashy American, who was second in the June 26 Iowa Distaff at Prairie Meadows. The Kent Stakes has been moved from its usual September spot on the calendar this year. The race has attracted a field of eight with favoritism possibly going to Syntax or All Ikarabout, the one-two finishers in a recent first-level Belmont allowance race, or Chief Kitten or Money Multiplier, both of whom are trained by Brown. The six-furlong Hockessin will match Fast Anna, Stallwalkin’ Dude and Bourbon Courage. The Hanford, at a mile and 70 yards, has attracted Normandy Invasion, Page McKenney and Micromanage.