Exotics Plays for the Nellie Mae Cox Handicap

A very nice field of nine fillies and mares will travel 1 1/16 miles over the Colonial Downs green in Saturday’s co-feature, the $100,000 Nellie Mae Cox H. The Jane Cibelli-trained #8 Public Defender (2-1) might be the ‘now’ horse in the field coming off a smashing allowance win on the surface while facing the boys most recently. By Constitution, the Colonial-loving filly sports a spotless three-for-three mark on the course and is surely the best she has ever been in advance of her black-type debut. 

Nellie Mae Cox Exotics Wagers

• $4 exacta key box 8 with 1,2,6 ($24)
• 50-cent trifecta box 1,2,6,8 ($12)
• 20-cent superfecta 8 with 1,2,6 with 1,2,6 with all ($7.20)

Public Defender will face multiple black-type winners in the group, and while I’m not in love with her morning-line price, I still acknowledge that the Kentucky-bred is peaking currently. The bay could move forward while making her third run off the shelf with Ben Curtis in the silks. 

Colonial also brings out the best in #2 Winfinity (7-2), who has been first or second in all four of her races at this locale, while she is unplaced in a trio of assignments elsewhere. Trained by John Ortiz, the Not This Time filly put in a big late run to just miss in the All Brandy S. on this green last out in her initial route run on the sod. The gray Virginia-bred loses Curtis but picks up Jareth Loveberry. 

Joe Sharp’s #1 Vehemente (4-1) is something of a wildcard in the cast as the controlling speed in the affair from the rail. The Vekoma filly led throughout in the Fleet Indian S. on the dirt at Saratoga most recently to win for the fourth time in her last five races in total. The talented chestnut has never run on the lawn; however, her catalog page suggests that she will handle the grass well. She will be dictating things from the early stages beneath Mychel Sanchez. 

#6 In This Moment (7-2), one of two signed on for Brittany Russell, is two-for-two since joining this outfit in the spring and gets a class test while making her stakes debut. The Dialed In four-year-old has improved her Brisnet Speed figure with each lifetime try and wouldn’t be a big surprise with another step in the right direction.