Take Charge Brandi Heads Delta Princess

Three weeks after her upset victory in the $2 million 14 Hands Winery Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies (gr. I), Take Charge Brandi will try to secure another lucrative purse when she faces a full field of 2-year-old fillies in the $400,000 Delta Downs Princess Stakes (gr. III) Saturday, Nov. 22.

Willis Horton's Take Charge Brandi scored a front-running victory in the Juvenile Fillies, holding off Top Decile by a half-length under Victor Espinoza. That victory marked the biggest upset win by a female in Breeders' Cup history as Take Charge Brandi scored at odds of 61-1.

The well-traveled Take Charge Brandi will be starting at a different track for a fifth straight race and for a fourth straight time will be picking up a different jockey. This time Paco Lopez is scheduled to ride the daughter of Giant's Causeway  .

Take Charge Brandi showed promise in winning her maiden special weight debut by 2 1/2 lengths June 22 at Churchill Downs and finishing second in a July 18 allowance race at Saratoga Race Course. But she then lost her next three starts—all graded stakes—by a combined 36 1/2 lengths before turning things around in the Juvenile Fillies for Racing Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas.

Take Charge Brandi is scheduled to start in the one-mile race from post six in the expected field of 10. Also entered are a pair of Larry Jones-trained also-eligibles in Divine Dawn and Lovely Maria. 

Take Charge Brandi could be tested early by JRita Young Thoroughbreds' Vivian Da Bling, who enters off a front-running score in the My Trusty Cat Stales Oct. 24 at Delta for trainer W. Bret Calhoun. A winner of three of four starts, including two stakes wins, Vivian Da Bling finished ahead of Take Charge Brandi in this year's Adirondack Stakes (gr. II), where she finished fourth and Take Charge Brandi was fifth. 

Whisper Hill Farm and GoldMark Farm's Skipalute will make her two-turn debut in the Delta Downs Princess off a runner-up finish in the Matron Stakes (gr. II) Oct. 5 at Belmont Park.

A year after winning the Delta Princess with Tepin, trainer Mark Casse will send out Gary Barber's Miss Mandate, a Pioneerof the Nile   filly who won a maiden special weight race Oct. 24 at Santa Anita Park.