Fluffy Socks Gets Up Late to Take Jimmy Durante
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Photo: Benoit Photo
Fluffy Socks rallies to win the Jimmy Durante Stakes at Del Mar
Fluffy Socks rallied from far back and survived an inquiry in the $102,500 Jimmy Durante Stakes (G3T) Nov. 28 at Del Mar to collect her first graded victory and add a second black-type win to her record.
A homebred for Sol Kumin's Head of Plains Partners, Fluffy Socks shipped west from trainer Chad Brown's New York base for the one-mile race for juvenile fillies. Irad Ortiz Jr. rode the 8-5 favorite and settled her in eighth of 10 early. Plum Sexy showed the way up front, setting fractions of :22.71 and :47 through a half-mile, at which point Fluffy Socks was in ninth.
Fluffy Socks was back into eighth as Plum Sexy led six furlongs in 1:11.69. She bumped with Consternation at the five-sixteenths pole then drifted out and bumped again at the quarter pole, where Consternation was checked by jockey Drayden Van Dyke, before she was guided five wide by Ortiz into the stretch. The bay filly continued to make her move down the stretch and got up late to win by half a length. She completed the mile in 1:35.35 on firm turf.
"No special instructions for me," Ortiz said. "(Brown) just said, 'Ride her like you did before.' She felt like a winner all the way around. We had some traffic on the turn (for home), but I got through and got her to where I wanted to be. She's a nice filly. Big kick."
Javanica got up from seventh to finish second, and Quattroelle finished third. Pizzazz was fourth after taking a brief lead in the stretch, and Consternation was fifth.
Van Dyke lodged an objection against the winner, and there was also a stewards' inquiry into the bumping between rivals. Stewards ruled that Fluffy Socks did not cost Consternation a better placing and that there would be no change in the order of finish.
"I don't think that anything will happen (with the inquiry)," said Brown's assistant Jose Hernandez. "I don't see anything that would make them change it. I really thought this filly was going to win. She's a really nice one."
Fluffy Socks was produced from two horses that Brown also trained. She was the first winner and black-type winner for her sire, Slumber, who won the 2015 Knob Creek Manhattan Stakes (G1T) for a partnership that included Kumin's Sheep Pond Partners. Her dam, the Kitten's Joy mare Breakfast Time, was a $300,000 purchase by agent Mike Ryan from Hill 'n' Dale Sales Agency at the 2014 Keeneland September Yearling Sale and also raced for Sheep Pond.
Fluffy Socks was bred in Kentucky and is the second foal out of Breakfast Time. The mare is also the dam of a yearling filly by Exaggerator and a weanling filly by Creative Cause . She was reported bred back this year to Exaggerator.
From five starts, Fluffy Socks has a 3-1-0 record, which includes a win in the Oct. 3 Selima Stakes at Pimlico Race Course and a second in the Nov. 1 Chelsey Flower Stakes at Belmont Park. She has earned $226,880.