Shesawildjoker, third last time in the Joseph A. Gimma, becomes a stakes winner Monday in the Shesastonecoldfox at Finger Lakes. SV Photography.
By Tom Law
David Donk hoped to run Shesawildjoker the second week of this year’s Saratoga Race Course meeting. That plan didn’t work when the Stillwater Stakes for 2-year-old New York-bred fillies didn’t fill, so he waited and went to plan B against open company in the Grade 2 Adirondack in early August.
Shesawildjoker finished eighth that day but improved a little more than a month later and back with state-bred when third in the Joseph A. Gimma at Belmont Park. Her third behind Classy Edition and Interstatedaydream backed up Donk’s belief that the daughter of Practical Joke was a “lovely filly with a little bit of a future.”
A month after that Shesawildjoker became a stakes winner in Monday’s $50,000 Shesastonecoldfox at Finger Lakes. Shesawildjoker won the 6-furlong Shesastonecoldfox by 2 1/4 lengths over Tosconova Beauty under Harry Hernandez for Donk and owner Joe Bucci.
Sent off the 6-5 favorite in the field of eight 2-year-old New York-bred fillies, Shesawildjoker shipped north from Donk’s barn at Belmont Park to collect her first stakes victory and second overall after a debut score going 5 ½ furlongs at Belmont in mid-June. She raced 2 lengths off the lead in fourth early while Thin Legs opened up a 1-length advantage on She’s a Big Deal and Tosconova Beauty.
Thin Legs, a 5-length winner in her lone start July 19 at Finger Lakes, continued to lead by a length after the half in :46.91. Tosconova Beauty, also a debut winner by 7 lengths at Finger Lakes Sept. 1, made the first serious run at the early leader approaching the lane and just before Hernandez guided Shesawildjoker off the inside to make her bid for the lead.
Shesawildjoker took over inside the eighth pole and opened up despite drifting out at the sixteenth pole. Tosconova Beauty held second, 2 1/2 lengths in front of Lady Finger Stakes winner Curly Girl with Thin Legs fourth. Shessawildjoker won in 1:13.22, just a hundredth of a second off Doin’ittherightway’s winning time in the $50,000 Tin Cup Chalice in the previous co-featured stakes Monday.
Bred by the Wycoff family’s Three Diamonds Farm and foaled at Stonegate Stables in Fort Edward, Shesawildjoker was offered as Hip 1602 through the Bluewater Sales consignment at last year’s Keeneland September yearling sale. Purchased for $80,000 by Travis Durr, agent for Bucci, the filly is the first foal out of the winning Speightstown mare Tarquinia, who is out of the Grade 2-winning Malibu Moon mare Luna Vega.
Tarquinia, a winner in her second start at Saratoga in late July 2017 and an allowance winner at Keeneland three months later, is also the dam of the New York-bred yearling Bolt d’Oro colt Thor’s Bolt who sold for $260,000 to West Point Thoroughbreds at year’s Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sale of selected yearlings. Three Diamonds also bred Thor’s Bolt, who sold as Hip 3 and was the second horse through the ring at the 100th Saratoga sale.
