Stallwalkin' Dude Leads De Francis Dash

There are late bloomers. Then there is Stallwalkin' Dude.

At the age of 6, after multiple seasons of thoroughly admirable stakes finishes, the City Place gelding found another level to his steady form. In the 46th start of his career, years of holding his own against top company paid dividends when the bay runner scored his first graded stakes win with a 1 1/2-length victory in the Oct. 29 Bold Ruler Handicap (gr. III) at Belmont Park.

With that hump cleared, Stallwalkin' Dude aims to keep adding to his back-loaded highlight reel when he breaks from the outside post, No. 9, in the $250,000 Frank J. De Francis Memorial Dash Stakes (gr. III) Nov. 19 at Laurel Park.

The 25th running of the six-furlong De Francis for 3-year-olds and older is the centerpiece of an 11-race Fall Festival of Racing program that serves up seven stakes worth $825,000 in purses. 

Fourth in last year's edition of the De Francis Dash, Stallwalkin' Dude has hit the board in each of his past four starts, including a runner-up finish in the Oct. 1 Vosburgh Stakes (gr. I) at Belmont and a third-place run in the Priority One Jets Forego Stakes (gr. I) Aug. 27 at Saratoga Race Course. Though he is cutting back from the seven-furlong distance of the Bold Ruler, he did win the six-furlong Tale of the Cat Stakes Aug. 12 at Saratoga.

"Any graded race is huge but when you've competed so hard for so many times against all these great horses, to finally win one of those was a little extra special," New York-based trainer and co-owner David Jacobson said of Stallwalkin' Dude. "To be able to campaign for as long as he's been campaigning at this level is very impressive.

"It's one race at a time, and right now it looks like he's right there at the top of his game and we're going to take advantage of it."

Bred in Florida by Maria Haire, Stallwalkin' Dude has 16 wins from his 46 starts and became a millionaire with his Bold Ruler triumph, which pushed his earnings to $1,088,352.

At the start of 2016, the Jorge Navarro-trained X Y Jet loomed as one of the most fearsome members of the sprint ranks. After wins in the Sunshine Millions Sprint and grade III Gulfstream Park Sprint Stakes, the Kantharos   gelding emerged from his runner-up finish in the Dubai Golden Shaheen Sponsored by Gulf News (UAE-I) with a chipped knee which sidelined him until his fifth-place effort in the Vosburgh.

"We did surgery on him and he was out for three months. He came back in training again and it was another three months, but he's ready," Navarro said. "He went in (fractions of :21.58 and :44.12) last time, and I watched the races at Belmont for the last two months and there was nothing even close going that fast. He came out of the last race really good. He's ready."

Shipping in from the Midwest is six-time stakes winner Ivan Fallunovalot, trained by W.T. "Tom" Howard for Lewis E. Matthews Jr. The 6-year-old Valid Expectations gelding takes a three-race win streak into the De Francis, though he has raced just twice since Jan. 30 and not since his third straight victory in the David M. Vance Sprint Sept. 25 at Remington Park.

"He has quarter cracks quite often. His feet are not good so it's a constant battle with him. That's why he was off so long," Howard said. "Once we got ready to roll again, there's not that many kinds of races around there where we're at, so we headed off this way. He comes back good. He knows his job and he tends to business. He doesn't get worried about much. He's pretty relaxed and on race day he knows what he's doing."

Ivan Fallunovalot owns 14 wins from 23 races, and is 10-for-15 at six furlongs. Hall of Fame jockey Calvin Borel, who returned from a five-month retirement in August, comes in to ride from post No. 2.