Over a sloppy track against last year’s champion sprinter and Breeders’ Cup Sprint-G1 winner Trinniberg, Delaunay shot to the head of the class among the nation’s sprint elite with a dominating performance in the $400,000 Churchill Downs Stakes-G2 on the Derby Day card on Saturday, May 4.

Now a winner of all four of his starts over the Churchill main track, and a winner of six straight stakes going back to last September, Delaunay campaigns for Maggi Moss and is
trained by Tom Amoss, who took the gelding for $40,000 in a claiming race nearly one year ago (May 12) at Churchill.

“By far, it’s the best claim I ever made,” Amoss said. “I saw a horse that I thought that was worth $40,000, which is what I paid. What’s different? I really don’t know. He’s just come around and he looks great. He doesn’t look like a $40,000 horse, that’s for darn sure.”

Sent off as the 1.90-1 favorite in the Churchill Downs Stakes, Delaunay pressed the pace of Trinniberg through an opening quarter in :22.29 and a half in :44.86, took charge
heading into the stretch after three-quarters in 1:09.08, and skipped over the sloppy track to finish seven furlongs in 1:22.35. It was four lengths back to second-place finisher Pass the Dice.

Ridden by Rosie Napravnik, the 6-year-old gelding pushed his career earnings total to $803,486 from 39 starts. He has won 14 races, seven in eight starts since Moss’s claim.

Bred by Robert Meyerhoff’s Fitzhugh, Delaunay is a son of Maryland-bred Eclipse Award-winning sprinter Smoke Glacken is out of the stakes-winning Maryland-bred Perilous
Night, a daughter of Coronado’s Quest. Delaunay’s granddam is Grade 3-winning Maryland-bred Broad Smile, a full sister to the stakes victress Jovial Brush and a half-sister to the dam of Japanese Grade 1 scorer Testa Matta. His third dam is Grade 1 scorer Wings of Love, whom Meyerhoff purchased for $300,000 at the 1988 Keeneland November Breeding Stock sale in foal to Alleged.