BY BROCK SHERIDAN
Dancing N Dixie, the Florida-bred female turf champion of 2024, makes her 2025 debut Saturday in the $75,000 Monroe at Gulfstream Park for trainer Mark Casse and owners Gary Barber, Jackie Ventura’s Rocky Top Stables and Chris Moore’s LEMB Stable. Set for a mile-and-a-sixteenth on the turf, the Monroe has 11 fillies and mares, 3-years-old and older.
A winner of the $233,000 Tepin at the Churchill Downs grass in June, Dancing N Dixie spent of her nine starts last year competing stakes fillies on turf courses at five different tracks. Although she was last of 11 in her most recent start in the Grade 2 Mrs. Revere at Churchill in November, Dancing N Dixie used her dynamic late run to finish third four times in graded-stakes company.
She was just a length shy of winner Waskesiu in the Grade 3 Florida Oaks at Tampa Bay Downs in March then less than a length behind Buchu in the Grade 2 Appalachian at Keeneland in April. She was also third in the Grade 2 Edgewood presented by TwinSpires won by Dynamic Pricing (Ire) at Churchill on May 3 and finished in the show spot behind Cinderella’s Dream (GB) in the Grade 2 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Oaks Invitational in August.
Dancing N Dixie has three wins and four thirds in 14 career starts while earning $389,800. She was a $35,000 purchase by White Type Stables at the 2023 Ocala Breeders’ Sales Company June Sale of 2-year-olds in training where she was consigned by Blue River Bloodstock.
(Dancing N Dixie’s Under Tack Video)
Bred in Florida by the late Freddie Hyatt, Dancing N Dixie is by Pleasant Acres Stallions’ Neolithic out of Foolhearted Woman, by Uncaptured.
She will be ridden for the first time by Joe Bravo from post five.
The Christophe Clement-trained Ozara (Ire) looks for her third stakes victory on the Gulfstream turf where last year she won the $125,000 Ginger Brew in January and the $100,000 Wait A While in December of 2023.
A winner of an upper level, $100,000 optional claiming on the Tampa Bay Downs turf on Jan. 3, Ozara has one start since, finishing sixth in the Grade 3 Honey Fox won by Special Wan (Ire) at Gulfstream on March 1.
Ozara has a consistent record of four wins, two seconds and a third in nine starts while earning $300,807 for owner Cheyenne Stable LLC.
Ozara is by Lope de Vega (Ire) out of Cercle d’Or (Ire), by Acclamation (Ire) and will be ridden by Emisael Jaramillo from post nine.
Clement will also send out Breath Away (GB), who exits a third-place finish behind winner Movin’ On Up in the $150,000 Sand Springs on the Gulfstream Turf on March 29.
Paco Lopez will ride Breath Away for owners Reeves Thoroughbred Racing, Tango Uniform Racing LLC and Steven Rocco. Breath Away has post seven.
Other fillies and mares entered are Swoonatra with Luca Panici named to ride, Edwin Gonzalez will be aboard De Regreso, Pursuit of Liberty has jockey Jose Morelos, Sensitivity will be guided by Rajiv Maragh, Life’s an Audible with Edgard Zayas up, Starship Agenda will have Leonel Reyes aboard, Shaun Bridgmohan has the call on Lady Firefoot and Puckered will be ridden by Wesley Henry.
Return to the April 24 issue of Wire to Wire
