Sheer Drama begins preparations for Ballerina

Multiple graded stakes winner Sheer Drama has begun her preparations for the Grade 1, $500,000 Ballerina on August 27 with a half-mile breeze at her South Florida training base on Thursday morning.

Winner of last year's Grade 1 Personal Ensign, Harold L. Queen's homebred covered four furlongs at Gulfstream Park in 47.50 seconds for her first official work since finishing fifth in the Grade 1 Ogden Phipps on Belmont Stakes Day.

"She worked excellent," said trainer David Fawkes, who will return to the Sunshine State this weekend to oversee the training of the Burning Roma mare. "She went 24 and three [fifths for a quarter-mile], 47 and two, galloped out in 1:00 and three and [out six furlongs in one minute and] 14."

In 2015, Sheer Drama proved a commanding force in the older filly and mare division with three wins and four seconds from eight starts throughout the year, that also included wins in the Grade 2 Royal Delta and Grade 1 Delaware Handicap. Sheer Drama turned in a game victory in her 6-year-old debut in the Grade 1 Madison this spring at Keeneland before finishing third in the Grade 1 La Troienne on the Kentucky Oaks undercard at Churchill Downs and fifth in the Phipps.

"We just backed off on her for a little while," said Fawkes. "We walked her for a few weeks just to freshen her up, and she's been back galloping for a couple of weeks and we breezed her today. We'll work her one more time and then bring her up here."

In his absence, Fawkes' Saratoga-based string will remain a family operation under the watchful eye of his 18-year-old daughter Natalie, who has worked for her father for nearly two years before receiving her assistant trainer's license earlier this summer.

Source: NYRA Communications