One of 2015's top older mares, Sheer Drama (Burning Roma) tuned up for an intended start in the $500,000 seven-furlong GI Ballerina S. at Saratoga Aug. 27 with a half-mile breeze in :47.50 (4/19) at Gulfstream Park Thursday morning. It was the Harold L. Queen homebred's first work back since a fifth-place effort in the GI Ogden Phipps S. at Belmont Park June 11.
“She worked excellent,” said trainer David Fawkes, who is traveling down to Hallandale to oversee his stable star. “She went :24 3/5 [for the quarter mile], :47 2/5, galloped out in 1:00 3/5 and [out six furlongs in] 1:14.”
The Fawkes trainee, who won a pair of top-level events in the GI Delaware H. and GI Personal Ensign S. last summer before a gutsy fourth-place run in the GI Longines Breeders' Cup Distaff at Keeneland Oct. 30, added the GI Madison S. in her 2016 opener there in April. Also the winner of the GII Royal Delta S. last year, Sheer Drama ran third in Churchill's GI La Troienne S. May 6.
“We just backed off on her for a little while,” said Fawkes, commenting on her Ogden Phipps effort. “We walked her for a few weeks just to freshen her up, and she's been back galloping for a couple of weeks and we breezed her today. We'll work her one more time and bring her up here [to Saratoga].”
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