Report: Wonder Gadot likely to face fillies, not run in Lecomte

Wonder Gadot isn’t likely to hit the 2018 Kentucky Derby trail after all — at least not yet.

The Daily Racing Form reports that the Grade 2 Demoiselle Stakes winner is expected to face her age group in Saturday’s Silverbulletday Stakes at Fair Grounds rather than go against the boys in the Grade 3 Lecomte, a points-paying Derby prep.

Trainer Mark Casse entered the daughter of Medaglia d’Oro, owned by Gary Barber, in both races.

"In discussing today with Gary, unless there are major scratches in the colt race, he’d prefer to run in the filly race," Casse told DRF. "That’d be the only way she’d run [in the Lecomte]."

Eye-popping allowance winner Principe Guilherme is the 5-2 morning line Lecomte favorite, with Instilled Regard, a Grade 1-placed colt, shipping in from the West Coast to contend. An overflow bunch of 15 entered in what’s considered the strongest Lecomte field ever assembled.

Barber campaigns a handful of top fillies and hopes to spread them out, Casse told HRN last week. Wonder Gadot won’t face another in the same silks, but Casse also has Grade 1 Alcibiades winner Heavenly Love in the field.

Perhaps connections will find another spot on the Derby trail for Wonder Gadot.

Barber’s feeling — and “I agree with him,” Casse told HRN last week, “is that if there’s one that would have a shot at possibly the Kentucky Derby, it’s her. I wouldn’t mind trying her out sooner rather than later.”