Weemissfrankie Working Well for Oak Leaf
Weemissfrankie goes for her second straight Grade I victory from only
three starts in Sunday’s Grade I Oak Leaf Stakes for 2-year-old fillies
at 1 1/16 miles. It will mark her first race on traditional dirt,
having won her first two starts on Del Mar’s synthetic Polytrack.
The 175,000 New York-bred daughter of Sunriver won the Grade I
Del Mar Debutante on Sept. 3, rallying from seventh in a field of 10 to
score by 1 1/4 lengths. She came from seven lengths off the pace to win
her maiden race at five furlongs by a half-length, each time with
Bejarano aboard.
“She seems to handle the dirt (at Santa Anita) well,” trainer
Peter Eurton said Tuesday morning. “We’ll see how she runs, but I love
the way she’s moving over the dirt right now.”
Eurton expected Weemissfrankie to be closer to the lead when she
broke her maiden on July 20. “I thought she’d show more speed than
that,” he said. “But she was so relaxed that she broke, kind of watched
things unfold and then made a run that was quite surprising.”
Weemissfrankie is owned in part by Rob Dyrdek, who hosts
“Ridiculousness,” “Rob and Big,” “Rob Dyrdek’s Fantasy Factory” and
other shows on MTV. Dyrdek, who counts more than 3.3 million “Likes” on
FaceBook and more than 1.9 million followers on Twitter, is expected to
attend on Sunday.
Probable for the Oak Leaf: Charm the Maker, Garrett Gomez; Egg Drop, no rider; My Gi Gi, Chantal Sutherland; Regal Betty, no rider; Sister Moon, no rider; and Weemissfrankie, Rafael Bejarano.