BackTrack: Second Straight Delaware Handicap for Obeah

Coming off her first victory of the year, an allowance race at Delaware Park on July 22, Obeah was coupled with Pimento Dram, a $5,000 supplement, and made the second choice at 17-5 in the Delaware Handicap, which she had won last year by 4 3/4 lengths.

Slipping from fourth to sixth at the half-mile pole, Obeah moved up after What A Dream took command at the final turn, caught the latter in the stretch, and won in time 2 1/2 seconds slower than the track record. Top-weighted Pattee Canyon, the favorite, made a mild rally from last place to be fifth, but never threatened.

Consigned to the 1966 Saratoga yearling sale by Pennsylvania breeder Bertram N. Linder, a manufacturer of Shagmoor coats for women and owner of Hickory Hill Farm near Scranton, Obeah was purchased by Mr. and Mrs. Harry W. Lunger, owners of Christiana Stable, for $15,000. Linder, who also has bred stakes winner Cool Prince, bred Obeah from Book of Verse, a former $5,000 claimer and dam of a yearling colt by Northern Dancer that Linder has consigned to this year's Saratoga yearling sale.

Both Obeah and Christiana Stable's other stakes winner this year, Unity Hall, are by Cyane, which earned $176,367 in two campaigns for Christiana Stable. Cyane won the Futurity Stakes over Jaipur and Sir Gaylord in 1961 and the Dwyer Handicap by 7 1/2 lengths over Crimson Satan and others in 1962 before being retired because of an injury. As are the two recent stakes-winning daughters, Cyane was trained by Henry S. Clark.

The syndicated stallion is also represented this year by added-money winners Side Door and Movette, and Christiana Stable's Pimento Dram, a stakes winner in 1968. He stands at Cary, Gordon, and William Grayson's Blue Ridge Farm near Upperville, Va. and had an Average-Earnings Index of 2.71 with 56 year-starters through 1969.